James Webb Space Telescope's first spectrum of a TRAPPIST-1 planet

Re:James Webb Space Telescope's first spectrum of a TRAPPIST... by standardly on Monday October 02, 2023 @05:30PM (#37744693)

A tidally locked planet would be neat if civilization could exist there. One side would be constantly hot, and the other would be frozen, but there would exist a temperate climate zone in a longitudinal ring connecting the poles. Almost like a ring planet from Halo.

I remember an interesting astrobotany paper hypothesizing that if plants were to evolve on a red dwarf planet, there would be selective pressure for them to be black rather than green (for maximum light absorption, as most light would be infrared).

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Re:James Webb Space Telescope's first spectrum of a TRAPPIST... by api on Monday October 02, 2023 @05:37PM (#37744771)

You could also put solar up along the edge and even on the hot side and have tons of energy with no need for storage. It’d be like a poor man’s Dyson sphere.

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Re:James Webb Space Telescope's first spectrum of a TRAPPIST... by standardly on Monday October 02, 2023 @05:53PM (#37744966)

Neat idea. Imagine getting solar/thermal energy from one half of the planet, and housing supercomputers and genetic databanks on the cold side, with population centers living in the temperate ring.

Or, the rich people could live in the temperate zone while the poor people choose between burning and freezing. Brb, writing a dystopian sci-fi.

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Re:James Webb Space Telescope's first spectrum of a TRAPPIST... by shagie on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @12:30AM (#37748011)

> Brb, writing a dystopian sci-fi.

Make sure to give Proxima by Baxter a read.

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Re:James Webb Space Telescope's first spectrum of a TRAPPIST... by hooo on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @02:23AM (#37748525)

super interesting. it also seems like there are tons of tidally locked planets.

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Re:James Webb Space Telescope's first spectrum of a TRAPPIST... by ikrenji on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @03:09AM (#37748771)

wouldn't this lead to basically having constant hurricane strength winds in the "temperate" zone though

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Re:James Webb Space Telescope's first spectrum of a TRAPPIST... by radicalbyte on Wednesday October 04, 2023 @04:28AM (#37762417)

Such a planet would likely suffer from extreme weather to a level which would make the planet incompatible with the life forms which thrive on Earth.

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