Sunday, January 27, 2013

Alien life may require rare 'just-right' asteroid belts | Essentials

Alien life may require rare 'just-right' asteroid belts

Earth - Illustration
Earth - Illustration by DonkeyHotey
License (according to Flickr): Attribution License
Excerpt:

A large planet does not migrate at all, creating a massive asteroid belt. Material from the hefty asteroid belt would bombard planets, possibly preventing life from evolving, one of three possible scenarios for the evolution of asteroid belts. NASA/ESA/STScI Asteroid belts similar to the one between Mars and Jupiter appear to be rare beyond our solar system, implying that complex alien life may be rare as well, a new study reports. Fewer than 4 percent of known alien solar systems are likely to have an asteroid belt like the one in our own neck of the woods, researchers found. Belts that look like ours may help spur the evolution of life, seeding rocky planets with water and complex chemicals but not pummeling the worlds with a constant barrage of violent impacts.

People:

Mario Livio

Overall Sentiment: 0.0504648

Relevance: 0.750732

SentimentQuote
-0.0282851"If a large planet like Jupiter migrates through the belt, it would scatter the material," Livio added. ...
-0.101452"If a large planet like Jupiter migrates through the belt, it would scatter the material," Livio added. "If, on the other hand, a large planet did not migrate at all, that, too, is not good because the asteroid belt would be too massive. There would be so much bombardment from asteroids that life may never evolve."
0.0264869"Based on our scenario, we should concentrate our efforts to look for complex life in systems that have a giant planet outside of the snow line," Livio said. ...
Sentiment Stats:
  • Number of Quotes: 3
  • Aggregate Sentiment: -0.1032502
  • Mean: -0.034416733333333
  • Standard Deviation: 1

Rebecca Martin

Overall Sentiment: 0.22869

Relevance: 0.564875

SentimentQuote
0.122425"The warm dust falls right onto our calculated snow lines, so the observations are consistent with our predictions," Martin said. ...
Sentiment Stats:
  • Number of Quotes: 1
  • Aggregate Sentiment: 0.122425
  • Mean: 0.122425
  • Standard Deviation: 1.4142135623731

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Additional Info:

FieldTerminology: solar systems

Overall Sentiment: 0

Relevance: 0.465164

Technology: Spitzer Space Telescope

Overall Sentiment: 0.185085

Relevance: 0.373582

Organization: Royal Astronomical Society

Overall Sentiment: 0

Relevance: 0.356373

Organization: Space Telescope Science Institute

Overall Sentiment: -0.0532008

Relevance: 0.351827

Organization: University of Colorado

Overall Sentiment: 0.0673639

Relevance: 0.33336

Organization: NASA

Overall Sentiment: 0.0844041

Relevance: 0.326949

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