Space Sciences Notable extrasolar planets
- Thread starter Second Summer
- Start date
OP
OP
It sounds like a weird place with a year that is less than 10 days! Would probably be a slightly uncomfortable place for humans with a higher gravitational force and higher temperature than Earth. Maybe it could be used as a penal colony or something. We could call it ... 'Hell'. Or perhaps 'Hell-not-on-Earth'.I heard about that on NPR this morning! So cool!
It would be beyond interesting to find another planet with life on it, but I'm not so sure that would make the planet habitable for natives of Earth. One interesting possible snag: if the native life forms of the newly-discovered planet had different amino acids...
Amino acids, which make up proteins, can have two stereoisomeric forms. The way the different atoms and groups are arranged around the central carbon atom can be different; they're known as d and l forms. They're kind of like left and right hands: basically similar, but not identical... and an organism cannot normally use the other kind. (I'm not explaining this as clearly as I want to...)
I forget which configuration Earth organisms use, but if the native organisms of the new planet used the other kind, I wonder what difficulties that would present to colonization.
Amino acids, which make up proteins, can have two stereoisomeric forms. The way the different atoms and groups are arranged around the central carbon atom can be different; they're known as d and l forms. They're kind of like left and right hands: basically similar, but not identical... and an organism cannot normally use the other kind. (I'm not explaining this as clearly as I want to...)
I forget which configuration Earth organisms use, but if the native organisms of the new planet used the other kind, I wonder what difficulties that would present to colonization.
