Comments on: Habitable Planet Found?

By: sleipner

sleipner — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 05:24:41 +0000

Actually Mercury’s day is about 2/3 of its year, 58.7 earth days to rotate vs. 88 earth days to orbit the sun.

A day on Venus is 243 earth days, a year on Venus is 224.7 earth days.

By: James

James — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 21:57:13 +0000

Sweet! So I’d be almost 140 THOUSAND YEARS OLD!

By: Adam Smith

Adam Smith — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 21:06:03 +0000

Ok we all are wondering how this can be a habitable planet and the answer to that is that the star it orbits is a red dwarf star which is much cooler than our star so for the planet to be habitable it has to be very close.
Also all planets rotate and so does this one however 1 year for this planet is about 14 days

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 16:25:39 +0000

Don’t stare for too long! We might offend it… then we’ll have yet another activist group. But hey, that’s America!

By: Sam

Sam — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 15:43:14 +0000

And all we can do is stare at it for awhile.

By: Sam

Sam — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 15:41:59 +0000

Yea…and where there is oil there is greedy bastards.

By: DosPeros

DosPeros — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 13:28:22 +0000

But you missed the point here Justin. Where there is water there is oil!

By: Justin Gardner

Justin Gardner — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 04:31:30 +0000

Soon Mike. Soon.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 21:17:11 +0000

So when do we leave?

By: AstroDan

AstroDan — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 21:08:59 +0000

Actually, neither Mercury nor Venus are completely tidally locked with the Sun. In fact, Venus spins on its axis in the opposite direction to its orbit around the Sun, though its rotational period is slightly longer than its orbital period. Mercury has an orbital period that is 1.5 times its rotational period.

By: Justin Gardner

Justin Gardner — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 20:16:16 +0000

I’ve never heard that. I thought Mercury and Venus do the same spin we do, except much quicker.

By: James

James — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 19:58:56 +0000

Where did we get that it was non-rotational?

By: dave s

dave s — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 18:23:53 +0000

I thought anything that close in to its sun would be locked (like our moon and those of Saturn and Jupiter), one hemisphere permanently facing the sun, and too hot, one side facing away and all the water there as ice.