New Earth like planet found
- Thread starter Lyzzly
- Start date
They’re pretty rare. I’ve only found 1 so far (system had a water world in it too 
, about 2500 ly from Sol) but I haven’t done a huge amount of exploration. I’m out doing exobiology at the moment so hoping to bag a few more earth-like planets while I’m out there.
, about 2500 ly from Sol) but I haven’t done a huge amount of exploration. I’m out doing exobiology at the moment so hoping to bag a few more earth-like planets while I’m out there.
93.5%, that's a lot of Oxygen, might get a bit explosive.
Unfortunately, this is not an "Earth-like planet" - this is a Water World. A Water World has surface water, and life, but the atmospheric composition or other values mean it does not qualify. To qualify as "Earth-like", you need an environment where you could (in theory) step out of your spaceship, take off your spacesuit, take a deep breath - and not die.
In this case, the planet is too cold (247 K is -26 deg C) - Earth-like planets must be between 260 K and 320 K. The air is also too thin and there is too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (6.4%. Humans become non-sentient at levels above 0.5% and die quickly if the CO2 level rises above 4%). And if you took that CO2 away, the removal of the greenhouse gas would make this planet even colder. The sulfur dioxide is also an anti-greenhouse-gas, contributing to the coldness.
If my Spanish rendering is correct, then I see that the planet is rated as terraformable, which means it is not beyond redemption. What the atmosphere really needs is nitrogen, and lots of it - that would help keep it warm enough while allowing the CO2 and SO2 to be removed. Exactly where to get an entire planetary atmosphere's worth of nitrogen from is a planetary engineering problem, and I'm not a planetary engineer. Of course, most of the local lifeforms on the planet would likely not survive this terraforming.
Terraformable Water Worlds are still quite valuable finds - the biggest ones as much as Earth-likes, a couple of million credits (universal Cartographics pays for planets by size; the bigger, the better - and your planet is unfortunately rather small). But true Earth-Likes are much rarer, and usually even more valuable.
In this case, the planet is too cold (247 K is -26 deg C) - Earth-like planets must be between 260 K and 320 K. The air is also too thin and there is too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (6.4%. Humans become non-sentient at levels above 0.5% and die quickly if the CO2 level rises above 4%). And if you took that CO2 away, the removal of the greenhouse gas would make this planet even colder. The sulfur dioxide is also an anti-greenhouse-gas, contributing to the coldness.
If my Spanish rendering is correct, then I see that the planet is rated as terraformable, which means it is not beyond redemption. What the atmosphere really needs is nitrogen, and lots of it - that would help keep it warm enough while allowing the CO2 and SO2 to be removed. Exactly where to get an entire planetary atmosphere's worth of nitrogen from is a planetary engineering problem, and I'm not a planetary engineer. Of course, most of the local lifeforms on the planet would likely not survive this terraforming.
Terraformable Water Worlds are still quite valuable finds - the biggest ones as much as Earth-likes, a couple of million credits (universal Cartographics pays for planets by size; the bigger, the better - and your planet is unfortunately rather small). But true Earth-Likes are much rarer, and usually even more valuable.
This is a tidally locked water world with almost -30° Celsius surface temp. Who wants to live there?!