<story><title>Super-Earths are ideal targets in the search for life</title><url>https://singularityhub.com/2022/09/22/super-earths-are-bigger-and-more-habitable-than-earth-and-astronomers-are-discovering-more-of-the-billions-they-think-are-out-there/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ramraj07</author><text>I suppose one cannot expect anything better from a site called singularity hub, but this post is disingenuous (or written by an actual hack) for multiple reasons. Aren’t the majority of planets we are discovering all orbiting red dwarfs, which can exhibit massive swings in luminosity and be very violent? Even the example quoted by the author which such a short radius seems one of them. Also what do you do in a tidally locked planet? Half if not 90 % of it is likely to be unsustainable.&lt;p&gt;Also a rogue planet without a star might be able to sustain simple life but without human sources of nuclear power the only source of energy would be geothermal, so not exactly exciting candidates for living. Also who wants to live in a planet in perpetual darkness?&lt;p&gt;Either the “astronomer” author wasn’t a real astronomer at all or this is just clickbait.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sbuttgereit</author><text>&amp;quot;Chris Impey is a University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona. He has over 210 refereed publications on observational cosmology, galaxies, and quasars, and his research has been supported by $20 million in NASA and NSF grants. He has won eleven teaching awards and has taught two online classes with over 300,000 enrolled and 4 million minutes of video lectures watched. Chris Impey is a past Vice President of the American Astronomical Society, and he has won its Education Prize. He’s also been an NSF Distinguished Teaching Scholar, Carnegie Council’s Arizona Professor of the Year, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor. He has written 70 popular articles on cosmology, astrobiology and education, two textbooks, a novel called Shadow World, and eight popular science books: The Living Cosmos, How It Ends, Talking About Life, How It Began, Dreams of Other Worlds, Humble Before the Void, Beyond: The Future of Space Travel, and Einstein’s Monsters: The Life and Times of Black Holes.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;-- &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.as.arizona.edu&amp;#x2F;people&amp;#x2F;faculty&amp;#x2F;chris-impey&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.as.arizona.edu&amp;#x2F;people&amp;#x2F;faculty&amp;#x2F;chris-impey&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Naturally, none of this makes him right... I have no judgement on that point.  But does clear some of the ad hominem.</text></comment>
<story><title>Super-Earths are ideal targets in the search for life</title><url>https://singularityhub.com/2022/09/22/super-earths-are-bigger-and-more-habitable-than-earth-and-astronomers-are-discovering-more-of-the-billions-they-think-are-out-there/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ramraj07</author><text>I suppose one cannot expect anything better from a site called singularity hub, but this post is disingenuous (or written by an actual hack) for multiple reasons. Aren’t the majority of planets we are discovering all orbiting red dwarfs, which can exhibit massive swings in luminosity and be very violent? Even the example quoted by the author which such a short radius seems one of them. Also what do you do in a tidally locked planet? Half if not 90 % of it is likely to be unsustainable.&lt;p&gt;Also a rogue planet without a star might be able to sustain simple life but without human sources of nuclear power the only source of energy would be geothermal, so not exactly exciting candidates for living. Also who wants to live in a planet in perpetual darkness?&lt;p&gt;Either the “astronomer” author wasn’t a real astronomer at all or this is just clickbait.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dhruval</author><text>Sorry for in advance for the dumb question...&lt;p&gt;Are red dwarf planets over represented due to detection methods?&lt;p&gt;Or is there some sort of astrophysics related reason red dwarfs would be more likely to have super earth class planets in orbit?&lt;p&gt;Basically should we hold out hope that with better detection techniques we will be able to detect more planets that are similar to our own.</text></comment>