Related papers: Better Than Earth
We devise and exploit a data-driven, semi-empirical framework of galaxy formation and evolution, coupling it to recipes for planet formation from stellar and planetary science, to compute the cosmic planet formation rate, and the properties…
We'll examine plate tectonics on Earth -- its features and forces -- and examine some concepts that may allow astronomers to ask useful questions regarding numeric models that putatively predict tectonic activity. But exo-planetologists…
One century after its formulation, Einstein's general relativity has made remarkable predictions and turned out to be compatible with all experimental tests. Most of these tests probe the theory in the weak-field regime, and there are…
In 1936, Albert Einstein wrote a brief article where he suggested the possibility that a massive object acted as a lens, amplifying the brightness of a star. As time went by, this phenomenon, known as gravitational lensing, has become a…
Many physicists have thought that absolute time became otiose with the introduction of Special Relativity. William Lane Craig disagrees and argues that although relativity is empirically adequate within a domain of application, relativity…
Thanks to the Cassini-Huygens mission, Titan, the pale orange dot of Pioneer and Voyager encounters has been revealed to be a dynamic, hydrologically-shaped, organic-rich ocean world offering unparalleled opportunities to explore prebiotic…
General Relativity is considered to be so far the best gravitation theory. However it is quite hard to use in real situations. The root of these difficulties lays in the non-linearity of the theory. Our aim was not to linearize the theory,…
We make a preliminary assessment on the habitability of potential rocky exoplanets around Alpha Centauri B. We use several indexes: the Earth Similarity Index, a mathematical model for photosynthesis, and a biological productivity model.…
Given the fact that Earth is so far the only place in the Milky Way galaxy known to harbor life, the question arises of whether the solar system is in any way special. To address this question, I compare the solar system to the many…
One of the mainstays of the controversial "rare Earth" hypothesis is the "Goldilocks problem" regarding various parameters describing a habitable planet, partially involving the role of mass extinctions and other catastrophic processes in…
This paper discusses the benefits of describing the world as information, especially in the study of the evolution of life and cognition. Traditional studies encounter problems because it is difficult to describe life and cognition in terms…
The dominant paradigm in assigning "habitability"' to terrestrial planets is to define a circumstellar habitable zone: the locus of orbital radii in which the planet is neither too hot nor too cold for life as we know it. One dimensional…
Is life most likely to emerge at the present cosmic time near a star like the Sun? We consider the habitability of the Universe throughout cosmic history, and conservatively restrict our attention to the context of "life as we know it" and…
The neutrino speed measurement experiments are the continuations of the classic light speed measurement experiments have been done in range of the solar planet system (Ole Roemer, 1676), in star system (James Braidely, 1728) and, at last,…
Despite the success of modern physics in formulating mathematical theories that can predict the outcome of experiments, we have made remarkably little progress towards answering the most fundamental question of: why is there a universe at…
It is often claimed that asteroids' sharing of orbits is the reason they were re-classified from planets to non-planets. A critical review of the literature from the 19th Century to the present shows this is factually incorrect. The…
Almost half a century before Einstein expounded his general theory of relativity, the English mathematician William Kingdon Clifford argued that space might not be Euclidean and proposed that matter is nothing but a small distortion in that…
The search for habitable planets has revealed many planets that can vary greatly from an Earth analog environment. These include highly eccentric orbits, giant planets, different bulk densities, relatively active stars, and evolved stars.…
Una de las presuposiciones de la ciencia desde los tiempos de Galileo, Newton y Laplace ha sido la previsibilidad del mundo. Esta idea ha influido en los modelos cientificos y tecnologicos. Sin embargo, en las ultimas decadas, el caos y la…
Should we expect most habitable planets to share the Earth's marbled appearance? For a planetary surface to boast extensive areas of both land and water, a delicate balance must be struck between the volume of water it retains and the…