An astral projectionist writes, "I have been there twice. The beaches are wonderful this time of the year ... but the ebb tide goes out at Mach 2."
Anyway, because it is relatively close, can be seen by amateurs, and has gotten lots of publicity, it will not be long before more detail comes out, to answer the important water question. That is why I had to get a spoof out relatively fast ;) If - like our moon, one hemisphere is always 'dark' then there could be a large "inhabitable zone" under a deep ocean, even if the hot side is very hot, and it would be a trip to envision the kind of intellignet life that could evolve there. Plus, for spaceflight they would be a bit hampered, but any civilization that has advanced life for millions of years can probably overcome almost any obstacle, and truth will undoubtedly be way, way stranger than fiction, on this planet. Jones -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] >http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/12/16/2152989.aspx I think they're stretching it a bit to call this a water world. You can get the same mass and size figures from a rocky world with a thick atmosphere. I.e. Rrock ~= 12000 km; Ratm ~= 5000 km; Density of rock is taken as the same as the density of the Earth. I have neglected the mass of the atmosphere (Earth's atmosphere only contributes 1 part in a million to the mass of the Earth; even if this planets atmosphere contributes a much larger proportion, it is still relatively trivial. My guess for atmospheric composition would be a CO2/N2 mix. Heavy gasses like CO2 are easier for a planet to hang on to which helps explain such a thick atmosphere. Both gasses would be supercritical at the rocky surface. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
