Closest Potentially Habitable Planet

[oxmixmudd]

Lastly, whether the Earth is young or old is primarily a metaphysical/theological issue, not one of "science".
Science only serves to support - and only to a limited degree - the metaphysic / theology.

Jorge

And that is simply not a factual statement. The data overwhelmingly implies and age of the Earth to be around 4.5 billion years. There are no two ways about it.

Jim

[Jorge]

Actually, i did scientific research for a living for roughly 25 years, and have had a science focused career for another 10. I'm pretty sure i know what's going on with science.

That's about the same amount of time in science work for me. Funny how that goes ...

But i won't stoop to insulting you. Let's put it this way: i've read several papers on the potential for "eyeball earths" to exist. If you'd like, i'll send you links to a couple. You can read them over and tell me specifically what's wrong with the science - something that goes against what we know about physics, atmospheres, stars, or planets.

An acquaintance of mine, with a PhD in Physics, wrote the following on this "finding", "So why are they even considering such a planet "Earth-like"? Mostly desperation. A few papers suggest that if there is an atmosphere, then convection can bring warm air over to the glaciers on the backside and share the heat. Of course, Mercury and the Moon don't have much of an atmosphere, mostly because tidally-locking tends to remove it. But hope springs eternal. Especially if it brings cash."

Mirrors my own sentiments. To that I'll add this: Back in 2012 there was huge "excitement" about an Earth-Like planet (Alpha Centauri Bb). We hear that kind of thing all the time coming from the Faithful Materialists. "Look, we found a missing link bird / human / whatever..." Later we find: "Bzzzzt, forget it - t'was a dud or a fake!" Who can ever forget "Piltdown Bird"? National Geographic dedicated an entire print to that Bird and then a very short retraction hidden several pages in after it was discovered that they had merely made a Chinese peasant richer. Bwahahahaha

Back to the 2012 "extraordinary find of an Earth-like planet" : "Bzzzzzzt .... forget it --- looks like it was only an illusion". "Alpha Centauri Bb may be an ex-exoplanet. This long-sought world was announced with great excitement in 2012 as the first Earth-mass planet in the nearest star system to our own, but a new statistical analysis has revealed it to be nothing more than an apparition."

An "apparition" - they're now speaking using ghostly terms? Hehe

Article here: https://www.newscientist.com/article...e-an-illusion/

Do you NOW begin to 'get it' why I regard all of this as the wishful desires of Faithful Believers?

Probably not but, what the heck ... I never expected any more anyhow.

Jorge

[Jorge]

And that is simply not a factual statement. The data overwhelmingly implies and age of the Earth to be around 4.5 billion years. There are no two ways about it.

Jim

Stop trying to destroy a person's chance at finding Truth!!!
You DO know that you will have to answer for that, right?
Something about "teaching false doctrines" that will lead to "a millstone around the neck".

If you didn't know, you do now.

Don't thank me - glad to be of assistance.

Jorge

[Christianbookworm]

Let's just say that if it turned out that we have misinterpreted Genesis and the Earth really is old, I wouldn't lose my faith over it. Can we just talk about exoplanets and not have a Creation vs Evolution or YEC vs OEC debate?

[TheLurch]

An acquaintance of mine, with a PhD in Physics, wrote the following on this "finding", "So why are they even considering such a planet "Earth-like"? Mostly desperation. A few papers suggest that if there is an atmosphere, then convection can bring warm air over to the glaciers on the backside and share the heat. Of course, Mercury and the Moon don't have much of an atmosphere, mostly because tidally-locking tends to remove it. But hope springs eternal. Especially if it brings cash."

Mirrors my own sentiments.

Then you and your friend are phenomenally ill informed. Tidal locking had nothing to do with the presence or absence of atmospheres. The moon has no atmosphere because a) it's too small to retain most gasses gravitationally and b) it doesn't have a magnetic field strong enough to protect them from the solar wind.

But i see your utter ignorance doesn't stop you from claiming that people who study planets so that we know all this are just doing it for the money.

Do you NOW begin to 'get it' why I regard all of this as the wishful desires of Faithful Believers?

I think i'm beginning to get that your decision to cast aspersions on the truly knowledgeable is a way to make yourself feel better about your own ignorance.

[TheLurch]

Just to clarify something: there is the prospect of what's called "atmospheric collapse". If the far side gets cold enough, key greenhouse gasses like CO2 and methane can freeze out of the atmosphere there. This chills the atmosphere further, causing other gasses to freeze out, eventually eliminating the majority of the atmosphere.

Tidal locking may make this somewhat more probable, but it's far from guaranteed. Parts of Mars' atmosphere has collapsed, now existing as CO2 ice at the poles, and Mars isn't tidally locked. Saturn's moon Titan is tidally locked to the planet, but it has a thick atmosphere. Io, which is tidally locked to Jupiter, has a thin atmosphere that collapses every time that Jupiter eclipses the sun from Io's perspective. Etc.

[oxmixmudd]

Stop trying to destroy a person's chance at finding Truth!!!
You DO know that you will have to answer for that, right?
Something about "teaching false doctrines" that will lead to "a millstone around the neck".

If you didn't know, you do now.

Don't thank me - glad to be of assistance.

Jorge

Jorge - I'm going to ask you to limit your elements of discussion to being related to exoplanets or stars, as that is the topic. Feel free to discuss whatever data you feel justifies whatever opinion you have about this particular discovery, or exoplanets in general, even to star formation (after all, I talked about my opinion of your opinions on that). Also feel free to discuss why or why not you feel exoplanets fit into a Biblical theology.

This discovery is historic Jorge. Already people are talking about how to get there, how to investigate this planet. Here we have a planet not much bigger than Earth that orbits another star and just might be reachable! What an opportunity that will be to learn more about what is out there. People may have different reasons for wanting to know what is out there - but this planet is within a range that not only might it be imaged and examined telescopically over the next 100 years, humankind might even find a way to go there - at least robotically. Do you not find that at least a little exciting?

And thank you for your concern over my responsibility not to lead the innocent astray. I take that responsibility very seriously. But I've posted the truth as far as it can be known on these topics so far in this thread - so anyone wanting to know the truth about these things will not be ill informed by my words. And I have always made clear that an old universe should be no reason to doubt Christ or His work on the Cross. So I think your concern is misplaced.


Jim

[oxmixmudd]

Just to clarify something: there is the prospect of what's called "atmospheric collapse". If the far side gets cold enough, key greenhouse gasses like CO2 and methane can freeze out of the atmosphere there. This chills the atmosphere further, causing other gasses to freeze out, eventually eliminating the majority of the atmosphere.

Tidal locking may make this somewhat more probable, but it's far from guaranteed. Parts of Mars' atmosphere has collapsed, now existing as CO2 ice at the poles, and Mars isn't tidally locked. Saturn's moon Titan is tidally locked to the planet, but it has a thick atmosphere. Io, which is tidally locked to Jupiter, has a thin atmosphere that collapses every time that Jupiter eclipses the sun from Io's perspective. Etc.

Given this planet is on the warm side of the habitable zone and this planet is 1.3 Earth masses, I would think that atmospheric circulation of what could potentially be a relatively thick atmosphere would prevent a runaway collapse, though you might end up with a island or '3rd pole' of frozen CO2 at the point opposite the eyeball. Do you know of any simulations or work that has been done that might provide insight into this specific set of variables (I'm sure there will be if there are not yet).

Jim

[Christianbookworm]

What's the strangest exoplanet?

[oxmixmudd]

That's about the same amount of time in science work for me. Funny how that goes ...




An acquaintance of mine, with a PhD in Physics, wrote the following on this "finding", "So why are they even considering such a planet "Earth-like"? Mostly desperation. A few papers suggest that if there is an atmosphere, then convection can bring warm air over to the glaciers on the backside and share the heat. Of course, Mercury and the Moon don't have much of an atmosphere, mostly because tidally-locking tends to remove it. But hope springs eternal. Especially if it brings cash."

Mirrors my own sentiments. To that I'll add this: Back in 2012 there was huge "excitement" about an Earth-Like planet (Alpha Centauri Bb). We hear that kind of thing all the time coming from the Faithful Materialists. "Look, we found a missing link bird / human / whatever..." Later we find: "Bzzzzt, forget it - t'was a dud or a fake!" Who can ever forget "Piltdown Bird"? National Geographic dedicated an entire print to that Bird and then a very short retraction hidden several pages in after it was discovered that they had merely made a Chinese peasant richer. Bwahahahaha

Back to the 2012 "extraordinary find of an Earth-like planet" : "Bzzzzzzt .... forget it --- looks like it was only an illusion". "Alpha Centauri Bb may be an ex-exoplanet. This long-sought world was announced with great excitement in 2012 as the first Earth-mass planet in the nearest star system to our own, but a new statistical analysis has revealed it to be nothing more than an apparition."

An "apparition" - they're now speaking using ghostly terms? Hehe

Article here: https://www.newscientist.com/article...e-an-illusion/

Do you NOW begin to 'get it' why I regard all of this as the wishful desires of Faithful Believers?

Probably not but, what the heck ... I never expected any more anyhow.

Jorge

You are way over the top Jorge - BUT - it is true that sometimes discoveries are announced prematurely. I would not begrudge you a wait and see attitude based on this and other false starts. The data backing this discovery is more substantial than what you refer to above, but it's healthy to have some skepticism of new announcements till more research is done. So while you tend to go to irrational extremes over these sort of issues, I don't see anything wrong with you saying - "Other discoveries have popped up and turned out to be mistakes. I'm going to hang back and wait to see if this one survives before I start speculating about it".

Jim

[rogue06]

What's the strangest exoplanet?

Planet 55 Cancri e was a contender when it was thought that it consisted largely of diamond but further analysis has determined that there isn't as much carbon as first thought.

Here are a few interesting candidates: http://www.space.com/159-strangest-alien-planets.html

[oxmixmudd]

What's the strangest exoplanet?

That is a really good question! There are so many that are wildly different from anything we have in our solar system. But I remembered this one when I saw your question:

Diamond Exo-planet


Jim

ETA: Curse you rogue, I see you beat me to it!

[Roy]

I'll see your "minor in Astrophysics" and raise you three (3) undergraduate majors.

To that add:
(1) I don't play the "credentials" game - that's a game for losers.

Then Jorge is a loser, since he just played the "credentials" game... and unless one of those three doubtful majors is in astrophysics or some related subject, he's a loser in that too.

(2) Everyone "pays" for their piece of paper. Get a clue.

Yeah, but the rest of us did an appropriate level of work too. No-one else here bought their "degree" from a degree mill.

[Jorge]

Let's just say that if it turned out that we have misinterpreted Genesis and the Earth really is old, I wouldn't lose my faith over it. Can we just talk about exoplanets and not have a Creation vs Evolution or YEC vs OEC debate?

Sure - your thread, you decide.

Just trying to make you aware of the importance of the issue.
Unless you simply don't care in which case it's just a matter of time for
the "science" to either corrupt or supplant your faith - it's inevitable.

Jorge

[Jorge]

Then you and your friend are phenomenally ill informed. Tidal locking had nothing to do with the presence or absence of atmospheres. The moon has no atmosphere because a) it's too small to retain most gasses gravitationally and b) it doesn't have a magnetic field strong enough to protect them from the solar wind.

But i see your utter ignorance doesn't stop you from claiming that people who study planets so that we know all this are just doing it for the money.


I think i'm beginning to get that your decision to cast aspersions on the truly knowledgeable is a way to make yourself feel better about your own ignorance.

I'm asking myself why I bother wasting more than a few seconds on the likes of you.
Makes me feel very foolish that I do. Oh well, I guess it's never too late to learn.

Jorge