The discovery paper (supplement) discusses the long-term stability of the system and it is mentioned that it's very hard to keep even the known system stable.
Quote from: as58 on 02/24/2017 04:49 pmThe discovery paper (supplement) discusses the long-term stability of the system and it is mentioned that it's very hard to keep even the known system stable.Isn't that true even for our solar system? I recall reading the accuracy of our orbital predication degrades past a couple hundred million years.
Quote from: gosnold on 02/24/2017 05:39 pmQuote from: as58 on 02/24/2017 04:49 pmThe discovery paper (supplement) discusses the long-term stability of the system and it is mentioned that it's very hard to keep even the known system stable.Isn't that true even for our solar system? I recall reading the accuracy of our orbital predication degrades past a couple hundred million years.Sure, to some extent. But in case of TRAPPIST-1 most simulations apparently lead to disruption of the system on a time scale of a million years or less.
Judy Schmidt @SpaceGeckI've got an accurate little TRAPPIST-1 system set up in Blender. This is 1 year of looking at the star from planet e.
Meanwhile, we can do at least one experiment: Examine this system for radio signals that would indicate the presence of intelligence. And indeed, the SETI Institute used its Allen Telescope Array last year to observe the environs of Trappist 1, scanning through ten billion radio channels in search of signals. No transmissions were detected, although new observations are in the offing. How sensitive was this search? Assuming that the putative inhabitants of this solar system can use a transmitting antenna as large as the 500 meter FAST radio telescope in China to beam their messages our way, then the Allen Array could have found a signal if the aliens use a transmitter with 100 kilowatts of power or more. This is only about ten times as energetic as the radar down at your local airport. And whether or not Trappist 1 has inhabitants, its discovery has underlined the growing conviction that the universe is replete with real estate on which biology could both arise and flourish. If you still think the rest of the universe is sterile, you are surely singular, and probably wrong.
When the news about the seven planets of TRAPPIST-1 broke, I immediately wondered what Andrew LePage’s take on habitability would be. A physicist and writer with numerous online essays and a host of articles in magazines like Scientific American and Sky & Telescope, LePage is also a specialist in the processing and analysis of remote sensing data. He has put this background in data analytics to frequent use in his highly regarded ‘habitable planet reality checks,’ which can be found on his Drew ex Machina site. Having run a thorough analysis of the TRAPPIST-1 situation the other day, Drew now gives us the gist of his findings, which move at least several of the TRAPPIST-1 planets into a potentially interesting category indeed.
Public tries to name 7 new planets after Nasa discovery- with chaotic resultshttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/02/nasa-asks-public-help-name-7-new-plants-chaotic-results/
Quote from: Star One on 03/03/2017 04:33 pmPublic tries to name 7 new planets after Nasa discovery- with chaotic resultshttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/02/nasa-asks-public-help-name-7-new-plants-chaotic-results/One of the reasons the IAU was founded was to stop this kind of chaos when it comes to the naming of celestial bodies (the arguments over the naming of Neptune were quite vicious). But in order to prevent other people giving exoplanets names, the IAU has to get round to naming them itself! I know Eric Mamajek, who is a member of the Executive Committee Working Group on the Public Naming of Planets and Planetary Satellites, is keen that the IAU runs another round of its successful NameExoWorlds process, though apparently there's opposition (professional astronomers can get a bit snobby at times IMO).
That's class-M dwarves for you: Once they hit main sequence, there's really no way to easily tell the difference between 100 million or 10 billion years old!
Quote from: Ben the Space Brit on 03/13/2017 03:39 pmThat's class-M dwarves for you: Once they hit main sequence, there's really no way to easily tell the difference between 100 million or 10 billion years old!From my limited understanding of that article it's the radiation output that's proving contradictory ageing wise.