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SETI Institute to Ponder Habitability of M Stars
www.astrobiology.com/news/viewpr.html
As one of the lead teams in NASA's Astrobiology Institute (NAI), the SETI Institute will host the first of a series of workshops on the habitability of M stars from July 18-20, 2005 mstars.seti.org. This meeting is open to media representatives, who may attend for free. To register and receive press credentials, contact Jennifer Bugnatto at 650-969-4537 or jbugnatto@seti.org .
"It may well be that there are far more habitable planets orbiting M dwarfs than orbiting all other types of stars combined," explained Frank Drake, the Director of the SETI Institute's Center for the Study of Life in the Universe. The possibility of habitable planets around M stars is all the more intriguing given the recent discovery of a planet around Gleise 876, an M star located just 15 light years from Earth.
"This is a timely discovery, emphasizing the importance of the workshop," explained Peter Backus, an astronomer at the SETI Institute and one of the workshop organizers. "This is the first Earth-type planet discovered orbiting a main sequence star. We've been waiting for this one. The discovery of large gas giant planets has been exciting, but nothing compared to this big rock even if it's too hot for life as we know it!!"
Nearly 40 participants from other NAI lead teams and academia will be attending the SETI Institute workshops to decide whether M stars should be on the list of target stars for SETI observations. According to Jill Tarter, the Director of the Center for SETI Research at the SETI Institute, "Most stars in our galactic neighborhood are M stars; historically we've excluded them because planets within their classically defined 'habitable zone' would be tidally locked to the star and have to endure periodic flares of hard radiation. This historical wisdom may require revision in light of newer atmospheric models and a new appreciation of extremophiles on Earth. Our list of target stars for SETI may be about to get a lot bigger." A second workshop will be held 12 to 18 months from now to allow for some substantive investigations on topics to be identified next month.
Results of the workshops will be published for the entire scientific community but will particularly guide the SETI Institute's search using the Allen Telescope Array (ATA). The SETI Institute is now designing a system of computers called SonATA (SETI on ATA) that will examine about one million stars for evidence of radio signals from intelligent life.
As scientists have learned more about the existence of life in extreme environments on Earth, the range of possibilities for life elsewhere have expanded. Of particular interest are stars smaller than half the mass of the Sun. These so-called M stars live for much longer than Sun-like stars, thus giving life more opportunity to begin and evolve. The environment on a planet orbiting an M star would be different from the Earth in many ways, but life might still thrive in such an environment.
Contact information:
Karen Randall, Director of Special Projects, SETI Institute
Phone: 650-960-4537 krandall@seti.org
www.astrobiology.com/news/viewpr.html
As one of the lead teams in NASA's Astrobiology Institute (NAI), the SETI Institute will host the first of a series of workshops on the habitability of M stars from July 18-20, 2005 mstars.seti.org. This meeting is open to media representatives, who may attend for free. To register and receive press credentials, contact Jennifer Bugnatto at 650-969-4537 or jbugnatto@seti.org .
"It may well be that there are far more habitable planets orbiting M dwarfs than orbiting all other types of stars combined," explained Frank Drake, the Director of the SETI Institute's Center for the Study of Life in the Universe. The possibility of habitable planets around M stars is all the more intriguing given the recent discovery of a planet around Gleise 876, an M star located just 15 light years from Earth.
"This is a timely discovery, emphasizing the importance of the workshop," explained Peter Backus, an astronomer at the SETI Institute and one of the workshop organizers. "This is the first Earth-type planet discovered orbiting a main sequence star. We've been waiting for this one. The discovery of large gas giant planets has been exciting, but nothing compared to this big rock even if it's too hot for life as we know it!!"
Nearly 40 participants from other NAI lead teams and academia will be attending the SETI Institute workshops to decide whether M stars should be on the list of target stars for SETI observations. According to Jill Tarter, the Director of the Center for SETI Research at the SETI Institute, "Most stars in our galactic neighborhood are M stars; historically we've excluded them because planets within their classically defined 'habitable zone' would be tidally locked to the star and have to endure periodic flares of hard radiation. This historical wisdom may require revision in light of newer atmospheric models and a new appreciation of extremophiles on Earth. Our list of target stars for SETI may be about to get a lot bigger." A second workshop will be held 12 to 18 months from now to allow for some substantive investigations on topics to be identified next month.
Results of the workshops will be published for the entire scientific community but will particularly guide the SETI Institute's search using the Allen Telescope Array (ATA). The SETI Institute is now designing a system of computers called SonATA (SETI on ATA) that will examine about one million stars for evidence of radio signals from intelligent life.
As scientists have learned more about the existence of life in extreme environments on Earth, the range of possibilities for life elsewhere have expanded. Of particular interest are stars smaller than half the mass of the Sun. These so-called M stars live for much longer than Sun-like stars, thus giving life more opportunity to begin and evolve. The environment on a planet orbiting an M star would be different from the Earth in many ways, but life might still thrive in such an environment.
Contact information:
Karen Randall, Director of Special Projects, SETI Institute
Phone: 650-960-4537 krandall@seti.org
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Re: SETI Institute to Ponder Habitability of M Stars
Fri, June 17, 2005 - 10:04 AMMy own personal opinion is that this is nonsense. Life *may* emerge in an M-Star system, but it's dubious that it can be sustaintained long enought so that it can evolve into complex life. The environment in an M-Star system is highly unstable, full of radiation and solar flares, and the sun burns itself out way too quickly. If life does exist in such a system, I believe it would outdo even our more extreme notions of what an "extremophile" is.
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Re: SETI Institute to Ponder Habitability of M Stars
Fri, June 17, 2005 - 10:20 AMWhoops, I confused M-Stars with gas giants. M-Stars are Dwarfs, so that changes things a bit. -
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Re: SETI Institute to Ponder Habitability of M Stars
Mon, June 20, 2005 - 1:29 AMTrue but it still has the problem that the article mentions:
"Habitable zone" is small and close to the star, planets are tidally locked. Sun energy is deffinetly an important factor in life formation (although other sources such as internal heat can work as well)
Also older stars might have less metallicity for terrestrial planet formation (because metals only form in massive stars through fusion and are expelled through supernovas and such - first generation 'old' stars will probably be mostly hydrogen/helium and their planets of the gas giant variety).
Although that would probably be a bigger problem for white dwarves then M-stars. It would be interesting to know how old the M-population is (to lazy to google).
I personally take everything from the SETI institute with a grain of salt not because their sience is bad (i mean i'm just an amateur that dabbles in astronomy, what do i know) but because they seem very biased. Like i don't buy how "easy" life is supposed to appear seeing how planet in apparently favorable places (Venus, Mars) are so hostile to it. Although if Mars was a little bigger, who knows... -
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Re: SETI Institute to Ponder Habitability of M Stars
Mon, June 20, 2005 - 6:38 PMI'm pretty much with you re: SETI. By neccesity, however, they have to function under the auspices of several sweeping assumptions, including grossly optimistic figures about the number of civs out there at this time, the ease at which we'll detect radio signals, and assumptions about ET sociology (they are transmitting, they are benevolent, etc.) -
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Re: SETI Institute to Ponder Habitability of M Stars
Sun, August 21, 2005 - 11:13 AMI think this is a bit premature and arguably a waste of resources. First of all, the most obvious point - we need to worry about life on this planet before concerning ourselves with life on another. Secondly, we suffer from a fundamental lack of information with regard to habitable planets. We have exactly one to use as a point of reference. We have no idea the range of temperatures, pressures, chemsitry, magnetic fields, etc. conducive to life. We can try to extrapolate and guess, but we're going to be wrong. Third, SETI is looking for intelligent life. We should simply point a radio transmission that direction and see what happens. And, of course, even if somebody picks it up and can answer, that doesn't necessarily mean they will. Finally, as far as crossing those 15 light years and taking a look for ourselves, please, we can't even make it to the moon these days, Mars appears to be out of reach completely, and the entire space program looks pretty stangnant to me. "Just 15 light years"? It may as well be in Andromeda.
Don't get me wrong, I'm certain there's more life out there, I hope there's benevolent intelligent life, and I dream of the "Star Trek" future, but we need to quit spending all our resources on fighting over this habitable planet. -
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Re: SETI Institute to Ponder Habitability of M Stars
Sun, August 21, 2005 - 11:51 AMSETI is probably our best bet for finding another civilization. We can listen for their radio transmissions, whether or not they intentionally sent a signal to us. As far as our space program goes, it's just too expensive and too difficult to get stuff out of our atmosphere with current or forseeable technology. The famed 'edge of space' flight that was launched by the private investor last year can only make it sub-orbit, we still have to use the massive amounts of fuel (and money) to achieve escape velocity. I wish we would have quit spending so much time growing hydroponic beans and developing rowing machines and just given our robotics people enough resources to get us moving somewhere. Anywhere...
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