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Habitable zone much smaller than the hype-able zone?

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From Hugh Ross, author of Improbable Planet, at the Reason to Believe:

For plants, animals, and advanced life to possibly exist, the liquid water and ultraviolet habitable zones must sustain their region of overlap for at least a few billion years. This longevity requirement creates a problem for all stars more massive than the Sun. Such stars burn up much faster than the Sun and their luminosities change much more radically than does the Sun’s. The faster and more dramatic burn-up histories of stars more massive than the Sun eliminates the planets orbiting such stars from possibly possessing plants, animals, or advanced life.

As noted earlier, for a planet to remain habitable it must avoid at least five different kinds of dangerous ultraviolet sources beyond its host star. As I describe in some detail in Improbable Planet, one of the more remarkable and very improbable features of our planet Earth is that it has indeed avoided sterilization from these sources.More.

But the hype-able zone is what gets the pop science media going and generates a budget, so… The main thing is, be the first on the block to know the facts.

See also: Astronomy text that privileges fine-tuning over flap doodle?

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Comments
Heh:) Agreed.rvb8
March 9, 2017
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Rvb8:
What more does life need really?
A good hug?Armand Jacks
March 7, 2017
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Actually mahuna, the theory that has much support in the scientifc community is that these deep ocean 'smokers'(hydrothermal vents) and their process of producing energy via 'chemosynthisis', are excellent candidates for the OOL.That would mean life started there and radiated out to fill new niches, the opposite of your dated anthrpocentric description. That would mean that these quite common places are where life first began, as opposed to other ocean environs. Constant hot temp, so stable connditions, and a chemical soup of the most exotic kind, along with an over supply of energy. What more does life need really?rvb8
March 7, 2017
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rvb8 @ 1 On the extremeophile thing, I've been told that ALL of the ones we've found so far "evolved" from much more common bacteria. That is, FIRST you need pond scum. Then, very much later, the inbred offspring of the pond scum work their way into niches that no self-respecting cells want. When pro-Evo folks bring up extremeophiles, they skip that part of the story and imply that the extremes are part of the ORIGINAL life on Earth. More importantly, they flat out Theorize that Europa and other hellholes could have Extreme Life without ever having had Ordinary Life. Of course considering the toolsets available to the Designer, anything might have been installed anywhere.mahuna
March 7, 2017
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Similarly, many promising patents on perpetual motion machines are passed over based on thinking that is nearly two hundred years old.LocalMinimum
March 7, 2017
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That is, 'habitable' zone, we as oxygen metabolising humans understand it; right? Sagan himself said that we understand life to only be possible at these temperatures, with these gasses, and with liquid water. He supposedd different temperatures, very much hotter or colder, different gasses for metabolism, helium, argon, whatever, different liquids, methane, etc. Of course evolution is simply not constrained by these ingredients, of water, oxygen, carbon. If life evolved that was silicon based, and metabolised liquid nitrogen the 'habitable' zone would be very different. Our own earth would be disasterous to these life forms. Once again, the lack of imagination, curiosity, and the limitations imposed by Intelligent Design rears its head. We have 'extemeophiles' living right here on earth. If the sun snuffed out tomorrow these creatures living in boiling, acidic sea water would bubble on happily.rvb8
March 6, 2017
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