What if there are other "Earths" that are still in making?

[stark710]

Keeping the Gaian theory in mind, isn't it possible that any of those giant gas bubbles revolving around other stars in our galaxy could possibly start building those cyanobacteria that can eventually create advanced life forms on them?

 

[rod]

stark710, interesting question. This exoplanet site The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia (exoplanet.eu) , present shows 641 large *giant gas bubbles*, where mass is 1.1 Jupiter or larger (up to 135 Jupiter masses). A good example is WASP-103 b, The Extrasolar Planet Encyclopaedia — WASP-103 b (exoplanet.eu) where the orbital period < 1 day.

How does the Gaian theory explain the origin of life on such an exoplanet and how does the Gaian theory explain how tiny life would continue to evolve, perhaps into *advanced life forms on them*?

 

[stark710]

stark710, interesting question. This exoplanet site The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia (exoplanet.eu) , present shows 641 large *giant gas bubbles*, where mass is 1.1 Jupiter or larger (up to 135 Jupiter masses). A good example is WASP-103 b, The Extrasolar Planet Encyclopaedia — WASP-103 b (exoplanet.eu) where the orbital period < 1 day.

How does the Gaian theory explain the origin of life on such an exoplanet and how does the Gaian theory explain how tiny life would continue to evolve, perhaps into *advanced life forms on them*?

rod, while it is true that the Gaian theory does not explain precisely how the cyanobacterias or the methogens formed leading to the Archean era, the basic principle is that the life forms today on Earth originated as a result of the gases breaking down due to chemical reactions between them, breaking down and formation of atoms.

In that sense, considering the Gas giants revolving around other stars with relatively lesser speed than WASP-103 b could eventually maintain a constant speed and distance from its star and form a rocky planet by attracting particles from the space using gravity and continue to build its own forms of life like how Earth did billions of years ago??

 

[rod]

Okay stark710, your answers help focus my attention now Apparently Gaian theory does not show how non-living matter evolved into tiny life. Apparently WASP-103 b is not a good example of a gas giant exoplanet that Gaian theory as you post could be applied too. There are recent reports on this gas giant, Cheops reveals a rugby-ball-shaped exoplanet, https://phys.org/news/2022-01-cheops-reveals-rugby-ball-shaped-exoplanet.html, and reference paper, Reference paper, Detection of the tidal deformation of WASP-103b at 3 σ with CHEOPS★, https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2022/01/aa42196-21/aa42196-21.html, 11-January-2022. “Abstract Context. Ultra-short period planets undergo strong tidal interactions with their host star which lead to planet deformation and orbital tidal decay. Aims. WASP-103b is the exoplanet with the highest expected deformation signature in its transit light curve and one of the shortest expected spiral-in times..."

Out of the 641 confirmed gas giants I cited in post #2, is there an example you can show that fits your model description for Gaian theory? Consider the average size of the 641 is about 14.8 Jupiter masses and average orbital period 28518.89 days. Semi-major axis reported for this group ranges 0.0026 AU out to 9900 AU from the parent stars.

 

[stark710]

Okay stark710, your answers help focus my attention now Apparently Gaian theory does not show how non-living matter evolved into tiny life. Apparently WASP-103 b is not a good example of a gas giant exoplanet that Gaian theory as you post could be applied too. There are recent reports on this gas giant, Cheops reveals a rugby-ball-shaped exoplanet, https://phys.org/news/2022-01-cheops-reveals-rugby-ball-shaped-exoplanet.html, and reference paper, Reference paper, Detection of the tidal deformation of WASP-103b at 3 σ with CHEOPS★, https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2022/01/aa42196-21/aa42196-21.html, 11-January-2022. “Abstract Context. Ultra-short period planets undergo strong tidal interactions with their host star which lead to planet deformation and orbital tidal decay. Aims. WASP-103b is the exoplanet with the highest expected deformation signature in its transit light curve and one of the shortest expected spiral-in times..."

Out of the 641 confirmed gas giants I cited in post #2, is there an example you can show that fits your model description for Gaian theory? Consider the average size of the 641 is about 14.8 Jupiter masses and average orbital period 28518.89 days. Semi-major axis reported for this group ranges 0.0026 AU out to 9900 AU from the parent stars.

Hey Rod, I am going through the list as we speak. Will read about them in detail and share my thoughts on the same soon. Meanwhile, I have another set of thoughts for you about WASP - 103b:

What if WASP 103 b is not inflated? What if its actual size is what it appears? As per the paper you had shared, the exoplanet is moving away from its host star. There is still a possibility that it's still taking the complete form slowly. And by that logic, our planet Earth too was deformed before it started moving slowly( ~15cm every complete orbit is very slow indeed, but given the understanding that the universe is expanding, that fact can be omitted for now) away from the sun and slowly started settling down to the shape we see today. What are your thoughts on that?

 

[rod]

stark710, I had to look up the 15 cm/yr rate of change in distance between Earth and the Sun Why is the Earth moving away from the sun? | New Scientist

That motion is more than many may think, in about one billion years, the distance changes by some 150,000 km or more. This discussion seems to be moving in the direction of planet migration vs. the original post. Concerning WASP-103 b, I noted this in my MS ACCESS DB I maintain on these subjects. My observation. This site reports properties for the WASP-103 system. http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/wasp-103_b/ My note. Using my astronomy spreadsheet and properties listed for WASP-103 system, the orbital period or P = 9.2430E-01 days or 0.924 day period. In one billion years, WASP-103 b could complete 3.9516E+11 revolutions. That is more than 395 billion revolutions in a one billion year time span but the host star age could be 4 billion years old, +/- 1 billion. The deformed shape of this hot jupiter and other issues like the number of revolutions completed around the host star are issues to investigate Consider that Mercury could complete some 4 billion revolutions around the Sun in the same one billion year time period.

When astronomers measure moving bodies away from or towards another body, there is the issue of how long this rate of change is measured accurately using modern instruments today (e.g. are the observations and measurements documented over days, weeks, many years), and how long the rate of change has been at work in nature. Example, the Moon receding from the Earth close to 4 cm/yr. In the giant impact model for the origin of the Moon using impact with Theia, the early Moon forms near 3-5 earth radii distance. Today the Moon's mean distance is closer to 60.3 earth radii distance from Earth. Showing that the Moon was 20x closer to Earth using telescope today, seems like a difficult observation

So, what are you proposing for the early Earth or proto-earth in the solar system? Example, how close was it to the proto-sun and how far did the proto-earth need to move or migrate?

 

[stark710]

rod, I am still trying to figure out the Earth-Sun and Earth-Moon distances during the Archean and Proterozoic eras. It is very hard to figure that out in the current age as very little data(if at all present) is available regarding this(if you have any source that shows the same, I would be very grateful if you can share it).

My theory as of now is that Earth was deformed too during its initial stages(again, the only way to confirm this is to understand the structural composition of the planet and the distance from Earth to the sun, during that era). The distance from Earth to Sun right now is about 0.98 AU and this could go above one in the coming centuries. The sun's gravitational strength as of today is found to be 274 m/s2. And we also know that during the Archean era, the sun was only 75% as bright as it is today. This implies that as it ages, the sun is losing its mass and gravitational pull on the planets, while the radiation energy has increased.

As per http://www.uvm.edu/~cmehrten/courses/earthhist/archean.pdf, the number of hours in a day during the Archean era was ~20 hours and a year was approx. 450 days. Ever since then, the same has drastically changed to what these values are today.

We have also detected the formation and destruction of H2O molecules on WASP 103-b(ref: https://wasp-planets.net/tag/wasp-103b/). But the time difference between these 2 events currently is very small due to the speed at which the colder parts of the planet are continuously exposed to the star's heat which prevents these water molecules from being stored on the exoplanet. If the speed of the planet reduces as it keeps moving away from the star, there is a chance that in a few billion years, water bodies survive on the surface eventually, which gives scope to the creation of life forms there.

Again, I am just using WASP 103-b as an example. It is possible that the theory I suggested cannot hold true for this exoplanet. But I believe this theory can be used to predict the scope of life on other exoplanets in the coming centuries. Once again, thank you for sharing the list. It'll help me a lot in testing the theory on these planets.

 

[rod]

stark710, very interesting link and 34 page report here provided, http://www.uvm.edu/~cmehrten/courses/earthhist/archean.pdf

A note from me about the 20 hour day during Archean period described in the PDF report. The proto-earth after giant impact with Theia was spinning with a 3-5 hour day. I have a 1963 book on the Moon, The How and Why wonder book of the Moon that shows Earth's original day was less than 5 hours, p. 14 and the moon-month originally about a 24 hour day. New models today using Theia are not much different. These are theoretical calculations only, something I do not see as *heliocentric certainty* science, thus tentative ideas only. Concerning the origin of the Earth and proto-Earth in the protoplanetary disk spinning around the early Sun, much has changed now since the 1977 MMSN model proposed, Minimum Mass Solar Nebula, see https://forums.space.com/threads/the-sun-used-to-have-rings-like-saturn.53464/

Interesting discussion stark710. Thanks for the .pdf url reference.

 

[stark710]

rod, very interesting indeed. Thank you too for sharing the reference links. These will fuel my research in the coming days. Lovely meeting you here. Also, if you have any reference material where I can understand WASP 103-b's atmospheric composition of gases in brief, please do share the same.

See you around!