Science Geek Alert
I found this article today on MSN and it piqued my curiosity so of course I had to go search for a more detailed article on the subject.
"We have estimated that the mean temperature of this super-Earth lies between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius, and water would thus be liquid,"
That's amazing because it's so similar to Earth's range of temperature. The sun that it orbits is also a red dwarf, not the yellow star that our sun is. I can't remember what phase our sun is in though. :-/ What I worry about though is that this planet is too unstable to have life living on it. I saw a documentary about the moon on the Science channel one day that talked about how the Earth would rotate if you didn't have the moon. It wouldn't have any stability to its motion and would spin erratically with the icy poles moving over major land masses, etc. If this planet doesn't have any sort of anchor I don't see how it could support life. Unless abruptly switching temperatures between 0˚ and 40˚C is a good idea.
Anyway, just my two cents on the idea.
"We have estimated that the mean temperature of this super-Earth lies between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius, and water would thus be liquid,"
That's amazing because it's so similar to Earth's range of temperature. The sun that it orbits is also a red dwarf, not the yellow star that our sun is. I can't remember what phase our sun is in though. :-/ What I worry about though is that this planet is too unstable to have life living on it. I saw a documentary about the moon on the Science channel one day that talked about how the Earth would rotate if you didn't have the moon. It wouldn't have any stability to its motion and would spin erratically with the icy poles moving over major land masses, etc. If this planet doesn't have any sort of anchor I don't see how it could support life. Unless abruptly switching temperatures between 0˚ and 40˚C is a good idea.
Anyway, just my two cents on the idea.