But do they have Trappist beer ?
PACK YOUR BAGS! Two Trappist-1 planets have watery oceans, most likely to be inhabitable
A team of scientists have identified two out of the seven planets in the Trappist-1 system as the most likely to be habitable, according to a new study. Since its discovery, announced earlier last year, the Trappist-1 system has been of great interest to astronomers – and anyone else sick of Earth, to be honest. A previous …
COMMENTS
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Wednesday 24th January 2018 09:36 GMT VinceH
Re: Food chain
"More likely anything large and interesting will be hunted to extinction, if it is sentient, then they will govern it to extinction."
Quite. If we were a race capable of interstellar travel (in useful time frames), the only chance life on other worlds would probably have is if it was much more advanced than us.
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Wednesday 24th January 2018 09:54 GMT Anonymous Coward
Comment about the artwork...
One thing I never get: why does the artwork which is shown in these articles always show a scenery which is pretty much unlikely?
Take this one, you see a rather big planet right up the sky. Even though the star they orbit is comparable to our sun in size and the distance idemditto. So there's no way you'd get to see the sun as shown in the image shown in the article, yet here we are.
Now, I know that those images make for much more spectacular stuff and it may even do a much better job at triggering one's imagination. But still... why can't it never be an imagine which pictures a more probable (realistic) scenery?
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Wednesday 24th January 2018 12:40 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: "why does the artwork always show a scenery which is pretty much unlikely?"
Or they could try Sheerness...
El reg is full of journalists with clip art libraries, not artists though - if you want that you will have to be referred to New Scientist magazine or similar (as long as you want interesting stuff that's not really IT related...)
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Thursday 25th January 2018 16:09 GMT Roj Blake
Re: "why does the artwork always show a scenery which is pretty much unlikely?"
I did hear a story once (on a Radio 4 documentary) that on one occasion they were filming Blake's 7 when they kept being interrupted by someone blowing stuff up over the other side of the quarry. They sent someone over to complain as they had been assured that no quarrying would be happening that day, and it turns out that Dr Who was to blame.
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Wednesday 24th January 2018 11:57 GMT cray74
Re: Comment about the artwork...
Take this one, you see a rather big planet right up the sky. Even though the star they orbit is comparable to our sun in size and the distance idemditto. So there's no way you'd get to see the sun as shown in the image shown in the article, yet here we are.
The planets depicted in the art fall between the foreground planet and Trappist-1. The supposedly habitable-ish planets identified by this study are Trappist-1d and -1e. Therefore, the extreme scenario for the artwork would be an observer on the surface of -1e looking at potentially Trappist-1 and the planets -1b, -1c, and/or -1d.
**Trappist-1, a tiny M8V dwarf, is 0.121 times the diameter of the sun.
**Trappist-1b is 0.011AU from the star and 1.13x Earth's diameter (with rounding on both values)
**Trappist-1c is 0.015AU from the star and 1.1x Earth's diameter
**Trappist-1d is 0.021AU from the star and 0.788x Earth's diameter
**Trappist-1e is 0.028AU from the star, diameter irrelevant since I'm positing the observer is on the surface
For someone on -1e, the star Trappist-1 is 0.121 times Sol's absolute diameter but 35.7 times closer in the sky. Approximately speaking, Trappist-1 will appear (0.121 x 35.7) = 4.3 times larger in diameter than Sol and cover 18.7x more area. It will be a big globe in the sky, quite a bit larger than Sol or Luna. On the horizon, as depicted in the article's artwork, it could appear that big due to the moon illusion. Since the surface temperature is 2500K, it will be fairly easy to stare at, too, a modest "warm, soft white" color that invites lots of naked eye observation while the excess infrared light burns your retinas.
Meanwhile, the planets -1b, -1c, and -1d could appear sizable, too.
1b: Since the world is between the star and foreground planet, which I'm assuming is 1e, the distance is about 0.028 - 0.011 = 0.017AU. This is about 2.55 million kilometers, or 8 times the Earth-moon separation. 1b is, however, 1.13x Earth's diameter and 4.14x Luna's diameter. In this scenario, 1b could appear up to 4.14 / 8 = 0.51 times Luna's diameter in the sky - a distinct globe, but smaller than Luna. One notes the transiting planet is quite small compared to the star.
1c: From 1e, planet 1c would be 4.875x as distant as Luna but 4.03x as large. 1c could appear about 0.8x as large as Luna.
1d: From 1e, planet 1c would be 2.625x as distant as Luna but 2.9x as large. 1d could appear about 1.1x as large as Luna.
The star and two planets in the artwork fit within those proportions: 4.3x as large as Sol (or Luna), and 0.5 to 1.1x as large as Luna. The artist took some care with the proportions.
If the foreground planet is 1d, Trappist-1 would appear 5.76x Sol's diameter, and there'd still be 2 planets that could appear in the sky as depicted.
Overall, I'm going to say the artist wasn't too far off, especially if the Moon Illusion is applied.
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Wednesday 24th January 2018 12:56 GMT cray74
Re: Comment about the artwork...
Addendum: the article's depiction of Trappist-1 does fall prey to the common mistake of "red dwarfs must appear dim and red in the sky." In fact, a 2500K light source is going to appear fairly white. The surrounding sky and landscape might take on a different, dawn/dusk-like color, but the star itself will look white to human eyes. The following link is an excellent depiction of a red dwarf and its impact on landscape lighting, as well as having a good discussion and supporting references:
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Wednesday 24th January 2018 17:43 GMT cosmogoblin
Re: Comment about the artwork...
And in fact, on any planet, the dominant star will appear white to creatures that evolved eyes while living on said planet.
Actually I imagine that humans moving to a truly red environment would adapt pretty quickly to perceive it as white - given that we can adapt to wearing "upside-down glasses"!
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Thursday 25th January 2018 11:03 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
Re: Comment about the artwork...
It will be a big globe in the sky, quite a bit larger than Sol or Luna
So - they have discovered Darkover? Quick - I want to go there to gain those interesting psionic genes..
Laran, here I come.
Even better if the other planet is Pern. Psionics *and* teleporting dragons..
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Wednesday 24th January 2018 10:48 GMT Scroticus Canis
Trappist-1 ... cool white dwarf star. - Since when?
Trappist-1 is an "ultra-cool* red dwarf star" according to other more reliable sources. Nothing like what astronomers call a white dwarf.
The headline stating that two planets "have watery oceans" is definitely missing the "may" in front of "have". Deliberate click baiting? :(
* Ultra-cool refers to its surface temp. of ± 2500 K, not it dress sense.
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Friday 2nd February 2018 19:09 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re. aliens.
If humans ever get there they will probably find that the resident life forms are highly sensitive to light and we might be able to set up a trading post selling them our "ridiculously cheap" IR LEDs for room lighting purposes.
On the other hand the planets might be deader than mutton.
They *might* have had life maybe 2 billion years ago but not any more.