Lightning on alien worlds may fail to spark life, simulations suggest

[Admin]

New research has found that lightning, while not very common, can occur on tidally locked exoplanets like our nearest neighbor, Proxima b.

Lightning on alien worlds may fail to spark life, simulations suggest : Read more

 

[Dave]

There is no conclusive evidence that Proxima b is tidally locked. What exactly does the phrase 'almost certainly tidally locked' mean? We know next to nothing about this world. It is the right size to host both life and intelligent life. It is a planet that sits in the habitable zone of its star. Most importantly it is the world closest to earth outside of our star system. Give this world a stronger magnetic field to protect it from its star and this world is nearly the same as our own. For all we know this world is almost certainly teeming with moons. It is almost certainly teeming with both life and intelligent life. It is both intriguing and exciting to find out all that we can about this magnificent world.

 

[rod]

The article states, "We don't know if any exoplanets host life. We have yet to find an Earth twin with the right orbit around a sun-like star, but we have come close."

I do not know that abiogenesis can take place on any exoplanet or those with higher surface gravities, e.g. 3 earth mass and 1.5 earth radii (more than 1.3 g). K2-18 b has been in the news but other reports indicate a comet in our solar system showed the same gases found by JWST reported for K2-18 b. The European site is updated with a filter now (very good and useful), https://exoplanet.eu/home/

TESS shows many large, close orbiting (mean 14.43 day period) exoplanets, https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/index.html, relative to their host stars. So far, no ET phoning home or groundhogs out in the grass enjoying a good treat and meal. I see the critters in my pastures like today

 

[Dave]

It is true. Out of the trillions of planets in the milky way we have successfully examined a few thousand or a tiny fraction of them. No earth twin have we found. We have skimmed the top of the iceberg and declare we know, what we know. We are so clever. We do not know however, what we don't know.