San Francisco, 8:53 AM
Tue Dec 22
25 posts in the last 24 hours
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| posts about #thealgebraist more → |
"Super Earth" Discovered Orbiting A Red Dwarf Star |
Do We Need Graphic Torture in Our Dystopias? |
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io9 
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Boiled, poached or nicely moisturised, will make no difference.
At this temperature and pressure, good old H2O is a supersolvent and will dissolve all organic materials, including carbon, boron and silicon based life, plus droids, mechs, cyborgs and River Tam.
I am however, very curious as to what colour Moistworld (there, I plant my flag, and name thee!) is.
In the absence of conflicting data (and despite the unflattering local lighting) I'm going with blue.
PS So glad to see that the "Just 13 parsecs away!", comes from the original Nature abstract ... and they say scientists have no poetry.
Amscray!
12/17/09
12/17/09
I ask as my science degree was gleaned on a sofa (aka all I know I learned from the science channel).
12/17/09
...and there was me, just thinking you were pleased to see us :)
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That's supersolvent water, from the crust, at very high temperatures and pressures.
It's loaded with huge levels of dissolved gases, minerals and metals ... nitrogen, noble gases, carbon dioxide, sulphur, iron, nickel, gold, platinum etc. etc., that pop out of solution, when the superheated solution hits cold sea water and appear as 'black smoke' pouring out of the vents (hence their name).
There is an abundance of life living around these vents, living off the minerals and heat and the organisms that can live off them, but they live in very narrow thermal bounds (sometimes only a few centimetres wide) between cooking and freezing.
Although there may be bacteria (and stuff that doesn't even qualify as that) 'living' further 'downhole' (and we are continually confronted with 'life', where it really, really 'shouldn't be') on our blue marble.
On Moistworld the temperatures and pressures look like they'd be just too high.
... on the other hand, this is one big-ass planet and it too, must have some sort of 'boundary-layer' between the 'water' and the 'atmosphere', so maybe, just maybe there's something 'living' there too, hanging out on the margins.
Ironically, it may be the very lack of minerals, dissolved in the water (revealed by the article writer's density calculations), that may have prevented this.
Life likes water, but it needs an energy input and chemical building blocks.
By the way, I wonder if Moistworld has a moon (or moons) ...
... and tides.
PS I hereby name thee Wetmoon
(or Wetmoon One and Wetmoon Two).
12/18/09
12/19/09
River Tam!!!
blasphemy... sacrilege... you unbeliever! River Tam can survive any thing I tell you ... Anything...
(sorry could not resist :P)
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#@!
12/17/09
Residents identified as anthropomorphic herpes.
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