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| Gliese 581 d (aka Cuz; a real planet for speculation | |
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| Topic Started: Jan 26 2010, 01:25 PM (3,958 Views) | |
| Canis Lupis | Jan 26 2010, 01:25 PM Post #1 |
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliese_581_d Here in "The Habitable Zone" forum, we mostly make fictional worlds to evolve life for. The only exceptions I've seen are Europa and Mars. But in 2007, a team of Chilean scientists headed by Stephen Udry discovered a world that could actually support life outside of our solar system. Gliese 581 d is the fourth planet orbiting the red dwarf Gliese 581. For ease of typing, let's come up with a nickname for Gliese 581 and it's system. Any ideas? I'm going to make this an open project. Is anyone able to make worlds in Celestia willing to create Gliese 581 d? I know it is already on Celestia, but I would like to be able to see a hypothetical surface from space. This world, according to Stephen Udry and a lot of other scientists, is likely an ocean planet with a few sparse areas of land. So whoever does this in Celestia needs to take that into account. Now let's speculate! |
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| Venatosaurus | Jan 26 2010, 01:30 PM Post #2 |
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HAUS OF SPEC
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Ah yes ! I remember this planet, and I speculated tons of species for this planet...One of them the City Reefs/Coral Cities, vast expanses of 'reef' that were bioluminescent and housed vast numbers of species, and the Floating Islands, buildups of 'plant' and 'algal' debris that over time accumulated to form tiny islands, where seeds of migrant plants would grow on the freshly built 'soil', that would float atop the oceans. Really crazy stuff ! |
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| Canis Lupis | Jan 26 2010, 01:47 PM Post #3 |
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.
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That is quite interesting. And rather crazy at the same time. Yesterday while watching a show on the marine ecosystems, I had a crazy thought: what if the marine world did not occur in water, but rather on land? So I speculated a few creatures for Gliese 581 d that way. Anyway, what effect would seven times Earth's gravity have on an organism? There would no doubt be a lot of large fliers. Terrestrial creatures would be rather small. The land would most likely be dominated by arthropoids. In the water, I don't know. Could something the size of a whale develop in Gliese 581 d's oceans? Or would the size of marine organisms also be limited due to the gravity? |
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| Rick Raptor | Jan 26 2010, 02:32 PM Post #4 |
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Adolescent
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Wow, a REAL planet in the habitable zone - that´s gonna be interesting. Instead of "Gliese 581 d" we should name it after a Greek god. Since it´s an ocean planet fish-like animals would probably be the dominant life forms. I think that despite the gravity a marine creature the size of a whale could exist; but maybe it would need a round body shape so its volume and the resulting lift force of the water is bigger. Because of the high gravity terrestrial creatures would probably be limited to very slow, crawling animals - an animal with long legs would probably collapse, and it would even have problems to lift its legs. Airborne animals might be faster, so a lot of the slow terrestrial animals might be armoured to defend against swifter aerial predators. Edited by Rick Raptor, Jan 26 2010, 02:48 PM.
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| Temporary | Jan 26 2010, 04:49 PM Post #5 |
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Transhuman
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Well, if it's another Solar System, greek may not be the best option. New Solar System, New Pantheon. All that gravity, I can't help but think of more reinforced skeletons that are built to be lighter. More efficent muscles (compared to size) would be important. |
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| Scrublord | Jan 26 2010, 05:24 PM Post #6 |
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Father Pellegrini
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How about Poseidon? |
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My Projects: The Neozoic Redux Valhalla--Take Three! The Big One Deviantart Account: http://elsqiubbonator.deviantart.com In the end, the best advice I could give you would be to do your project in a way that feels natural to you, rather than trying to imitate some geek with a laptop in Colorado. --Heteromorph | |
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| lamna | Jan 26 2010, 05:25 PM Post #7 |
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In the water large animals would probably not be much of a problem, whales are specially adapted to be heavier than they need to be to help them swim. Perhaps whales won't grow as titanic as they do here, but they could still be pretty impressive. As for the name, It's planet Elizabeth of course. Oh I'm sure it will get a silly neutral name of a mostly extinct pantheon, but we'll know it's not really Brighid (Irish goddess of moistness), or whatever silly name the natives pretend it is called. Edited by lamna, Jan 26 2010, 05:27 PM.
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Living Fossils Fósseis Vibos: Reserva Natural 34 MYH, 4 tonne dinosaur. [flash=500,450] Video Magic! [/flash] | |
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| Canis Lupis | Jan 26 2010, 05:28 PM Post #8 |
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I'll search through the list of Greek gods to see if any match the characteristics of Gliese 581 d. Perhaps we could name the worlds in the solar system after characters in the "Odyssey" or the "Illiad". If we go with the Greek god scheme, here's how we could name the system: Gliese 581 (the sun of this system): Udry, after the man who discovered it's most habitable world Gliese 581 e (the first planet from Udry): Arion, an immortal horse famed for its swiftness (this world orbits in about four days) Gliese 581 b (the second planet from Udry): Alastor, the Greek demon of family feuds (if the orbits of Alectrona and Alastor are coplanar, the whole system would be thrown out of whack) Gliese 581 c (the third planet from Udry): Apate, the Greek goddess of deception (it was once believed that this world was the habitable one) Gliese 581 d (the fourth planet from Udry): Caerus, the Greek god of oppurtunity (there is the oppurtunity to study potential alien life forms, an oppurtunity never before presented to us) The terrestrial animals would probably have a larger-than-normal amount of legs. Imagine an arthropleura-like creature on Gliese 581 d. Plants would be small, like bricks. Or perhaps slime molds. Because of that, plant eaters would have their mouths relatively close to the ground. On Gliese (or Caerus, whatever we want to call it), you could actually see a lot of fliers like the skewer form Darwin IV. In fact, you could also see some zeppeloons (is that what the creator of Furaha called it?). The seas would be the main source of life on the planet. They would have a larger amount of biodiversity than even Earth's oceans have, most likely. Perhaps you could get creatures larger than whales, though I'm not sure. |
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| Canis Lupis | Jan 26 2010, 06:02 PM Post #9 |
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.
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Check this out. Apparently, the gravity on this world is not as strong as I thought: http://scienceblogs.com/authority/2009/04/its_life_jim_but_not_as_we_kno.php |
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| Scrublord | Jan 26 2010, 06:28 PM Post #10 |
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Father Pellegrini
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I like that. Caerus it is! |
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My Projects: The Neozoic Redux Valhalla--Take Three! The Big One Deviantart Account: http://elsqiubbonator.deviantart.com In the end, the best advice I could give you would be to do your project in a way that feels natural to you, rather than trying to imitate some geek with a laptop in Colorado. --Heteromorph | |
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| ATEK Azul | Jan 26 2010, 07:15 PM Post #11 |
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Transhuman
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With a higher Gravity and Water pressure maybe Skeletons and shells would be a disadvantage since they would be crushed and restrictive. Since Octopods(who have barely if any skeleton), Slugs, Jellyfish and Echinoderms do so well and yet have little Skeletal support maybe life here would use pressurization to support themselves. I also see them evolving a Ray like Body to keep more water under them so they aren't pulled down and crushed? I also don't see much land life at all both from the issue of to little land to move to, and the fact that Gravity would crush most life or even make them Insect sized or Dust Mite sized. |
| I am dyslexic, please ignore the typo's! | |
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| Canis Lupis | Jan 26 2010, 08:57 PM Post #12 |
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.
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Alright. Caerus. I did some calculations to calculate Caerus's actual gravity, though there is a lot of unknowns. First, we need to know the mass and we need to know the volume in order to figure out the density, which tells us what the surface gravity might be. Caerus is, at the lowest, seven times as massive as Earth. Therefore, it has a mass of 4.18152*10^25. This would also mean that the radius would be seven times the size. Using the formula to find the volume of a sphere, the volume comes out to be 37243887938821. Dividing the mass by the volume will give you a density of 1122739926312. Performing the same calculations for Earth give you a density of 5514733883348. If you divide the two densities, you will find that Caerus is just .2 times as dense as the Earth. Therefore, Caerus has an approximate surface gravity of .65 g. Pretty light when compared to Earth. That means that, if there is land, creatures are going to get BIGGER not smaller than on Earth. But most likely, Caerus is all ocean. So we could potentially see creatures larger than whales swimming in Caerus's oceans. The air would be filled with a lot of flying creatures still, but it would take more energy to fly. No zeppeloons (:sniff:). Of course, this all assumes I am doing the math right. I'm no planetary systematics expert. Oceanus or Empyreon or someone with a similar knowlede about planetary physics, could you double check my numbers to make sure I've got it right? Atek: I like the way you were thinking there. You will be right if my math is proven alright. But if Caerus ends up having a higher gravity than Earth, you might be wrong. Something without internal (or external) support would be crushed under the strong gravity. If something soft and squishy were to move onto any possible land, they would have to evolve soem internal or external support first. A pressurized skeleton, like you suggested, would work for a start. But over the generations, this pressurized skeleton would evolve into a stronger "bone" to further aid in skeletal support. |
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| ATEK Azul | Jan 26 2010, 09:31 PM Post #13 |
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Transhuman
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I'm glad what I said made some sense. I would like to point out a few things and add a little as well though. The pressurization I was talking about would not be in certain areas that you could solidify into Bones. It would instead be spread through out lifes tissues. Land would require a new skeleton for land, though this would be easier to evolve if the gravity is as low as you say. Also some of the best deep sea life as I tryed to point out has a squishy body since the pressure of the water crushes bones often. Again not as relivent if it has lower gravity unless the planet is all water in which case eventually pressure would get powerful at a deeper poin than is equivelent on Earth. Also Pressurization might also be occompanied by denser tissue inorder to further support the life forms. Once agian not as relevent until you go quite deep on a world of water. And the Ray body plan is still fine in most cases. Well that goes further(if I didn't repeat stuff) into the points I was making though most have become irrelevent with the new gravity whether they were good or not. |
| I am dyslexic, please ignore the typo's! | |
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| lamna | Jan 27 2010, 06:11 AM Post #14 |
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I'm not sure how well pressurization would work, too much and your animal will be rigid unable to circulate blood, move, etc. I think Elizabethan skeletons would just need to be very thick and strong, perhaps with animals dragging their bellies to spread the weight. |
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Living Fossils Fósseis Vibos: Reserva Natural 34 MYH, 4 tonne dinosaur. [flash=500,450] Video Magic! [/flash] | |
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| Oceaniis | Jan 27 2010, 07:39 AM Post #15 |
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Adolescent
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Cool! I'm an expert! So lets check.. Gliese 581 d is 7 to 13 earth masses, why did you choose the lower limit? Would be more likely be the average of the limites, no? But ok mass=7 is already a lot, you need to know it's density to calculate it's size, and with 7 earth masses it wouldn't be bigger than 2 earth's radius... According with Diana Valencia paper, for a 7,5M and earth like composition it would have a radius of 10 800Km and for 20% ocean layer, 11 900Km. For the first case it would have a density of 8,5Kg/dm3 with 2,6g, second case with 20% ocean layer it would have a density of 6,4Kg/dm3 with 2,2g. For the densities you probably forgot the units, a density of 1122739926312!! it's denser than a black hole!! I don't know why she use so dense models, but seems to be about the iron core's size.... however I did some calculations of a density equal to earth's, and would have 2g, and 1,6g for a mars' density... Edited by Oceaniis, Jan 27 2010, 07:42 AM.
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