Life in Double Stars?

[Jin Peng]

hm....i thinking what if a triple star system....

[ALPiNe]

Thanks Zong for the compliment! Didn't do much really.. :oops: About the "planet", just as you have pointed out that it is a "hot Jupiter" and therefore nearly a star of its own (pun intended), it cannot be considered a star. I think if this were to come into the attention of astronomers who might be planetary extremists, it would certainly have them up in arms! If such a system is to be acknowledged as an incomplete quadruple stellar system, then I think it will only be fair to also acknowledge it as an incomplete quadruple planetary system. No doubt, such issues are still debatable even today, but life still goes on all the same.

Anyway, I do agree that more 'debates' would be fun. Hope to see more 'fireworks' around here! Oh yeah, maybe you can invite your friends to join Singastro as well? :k-lol:


Cheers,
:cheers:
- ALPiNe

[zong]

Triple star system? More fun sia, but the trajectory, er, we can quite forget about calculating, much less the habitable zone and the possiblity of life Ya gotta know the mass of stars and relative masses and distance between each star, etc etc etc, i'm thinking you need a good grasp of matrix calculation and a supercomputer to attempt to solve the mystery. Ouch :k-=X:

But it'd be cool to have a triple sunset view. Not cool tho if 3 stars are nicely 120deg from each other and you have 24hr daylight! :k-shock:

Oh yea. Any biologists here? I'm thinking, lifeform must first start with plants, which need sunlight to live. If there were 2 or more suns, that means that there'll be more sunlight. Will life evolve faster this way, and thus reach "intelligent" lifeform faster? :k-?:

[ChaosKnight]

Write your own program for 3 body problem. Not difficult to do a simple exel program. That's what i did sometime back. Here are a few jpgs.

[Jin Peng]

interesting.....like dat there sure wun exist a planet, any collision with the star is possible. i heard our sun is approaching and getting to another star right? true a not ah?

[Tachyon]

I'm thinking, lifeform must first start with plants, which need sunlight to live. If there were 2 or more suns, that means that there'll be more sunlight. Will life evolve faster this way, and thus reach "intelligent" lifeform faster? :k-?:

Well, simple question, but complicated answer!

Firstly, plants produce oxygen in daylight, which is essential to creatures like us that use mitochondrial respiration. However, oxygen itself is an oxidizing agent (see what is does to a piece of shiny iron exposed to air?) and too much of it is toxic. One hypothesis is that life evolved in a reducing environment, as oxygen will destroy the possibility of single-celled organisms forming (oxygen inhibits the formation of amino acids). It has been assumed that the early environment on earth is rich in reducing chemicals with gases like methane, ammonia, etc. So, having two suns will not speed up the first part of life formation.

Secondly, the oxygen level in our current atmosphere is about 21%. Excessive oxygen will produce more 'free radicals' and destroy the chemicals in the body (free radicals have been implicated in the formation of cancers). High levels of oxygen is also lethal to humans, an important fact for divers. Increasing the amount of oxygen in the air will probably reduce the number of organisms, rather than increase it.

Thirdly, life is not dependent on oxygen. Yes, we do, but many anaerobic organisms exist that do not depend on oxygen to go about their daily business. It is conceivable that entire organisms can exist that breathes other gases than oxygen (Have you watched the movie "Evolution"?)

Cheers!

[Tachyon]

Chaosknight - Nice simulations!

Anyone else want to try their hand at simulating with the following parameters?

1. Sol1: Mass and Size = Sun
2. Sol2: Mass = 0.2 x Sun
3. Earth: Mass and Size = Earth

Objective: find the optimal distance between Sol1, Sol2 and Earth such that Earth remains in a relatively stable orbit around the binary star.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-body_problem

Cheers!

[ChaosKnight]

Here you go.

The blue is your 0.2 solar mass star. Red is the 1 solar mass star. Green represents the Earth mass.

This is only one of many possible orbits. I'm not sure if you want the Earth to orbit outside both stars or not. Here the Earth is inside the orbit of the lower mass star, and is also orbiting around the Sun-mass star.

One thing i must state is that this method uses finite time steps, so there will be errors in the projected trajectories.

[ChaosKnight]

Another pt to note: the earth is within the habitable zone of the sun-mass star.

Shown below are y-velocity plots of the Earth mass body. Note the two frequencies, one superimposed on another.

[ChaosKnight]

2 sun-mass stars with 1 earth-mass body within the habitable zone of one star. Looks stable now, but no telling what will happen in the future.