Press release: Nasa, Kepler
Two interesting posts from SETI by Laurance Doyle and Franck Marchis
(1) Doyle, L., Carter, J., Fabrycky, D., Slawson, R., Howell, S., Winn, J., Orosz, J., Pr sa, A., Welsh, W., Quinn, S., Latham, D., Torres, G., Buchhave, L., Marcy, G., Fortney, J., Shporer, A., Ford, E., Lissauer, J., Ragozzine, D., Rucker, M., Batalha, N., Jenkins, J., Borucki, W., Koch, D., Middour, C., Hall, J., McCauliff, S., Fanelli, M., Quintana, E., Holman, M., Caldwell, D., Still, M., Stefanik, R., Brown, W., Esquerdo, G., Tang, S., Furesz, G., Geary, J., Berlind, P., Calkins, M., Short, D., Steffen, J., Sasselov, D., Dunham, E., Cochran, W., Boss, A., Haas, M., Buzasi, D., & Fischer, D. (2011). Kepler-16: A Transiting Circumbinary Planet Science, 333 (6049), 1602-1606 DOI: 10.1126/science.1210923 (pdf)
(2) In the paper we can read that the high density suggests a greater degree of enrichment by heavy elements. At the other hand
Nevertheless, for any age greater than 0.5 Gyr, the planet’s interior would include 40-60 Earth masses of heavy elements according to standard planetary models(3). This would imply a composition of approximately half gas (hydrogen and helium) and half heavy elements (presumably ice and rock).So I think that is not so correct write in press release
Kepler-16b is cold, gaseous and not thought to harbor lifealso because
it more difficult to estimate the age [of star A] with theoretical evolutionary modelsThe surface temperature (170-200 K), instead, seems more certain.
In every case Kepler-16b is a death planet...
(3) Fortney, J.J., et al., Planetary Radii across Five Orders of Magnitude in Mass and Stellar Insolation: Application to Transits, Astroph. J., 659, 1661-1672 (2007)
This is pretty neat- but Kepler 16b is cold and gaseous. If it harbors any form of life, it cannot lifeforms we are accustomed too. Maybe it has moons similar to Europa that could have liquid oceans beneath their icy surface- but any forms of life their would never see the double stars. They would live in the inky blackness of a deep extrasolar sea, having only the flashing lights of strange deep-sea creatures to navigate by.
ReplyDeleteI have a question for any astrophysics nerds reading this- is it possible for a planet to have a stable orbit in the habitable zone of the Kepler 16 system, or any other binary system? If it is, perhaps someday a human astronaut will see double suns in the sky of an alien world.
Christopher Phoenix