{"id":86842,"date":"2019-01-19T16:02:27","date_gmt":"2019-01-20T00:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/01\/geothermal-heating-could-make-life-possible-on-the-super-earth-planet-at-barnards-star"},"modified":"2019-01-19T16:02:27","modified_gmt":"2019-01-20T00:02:27","slug":"geothermal-heating-could-make-life-possible-on-the-super-earth-planet-at-barnards-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/01\/geothermal-heating-could-make-life-possible-on-the-super-earth-planet-at-barnards-star","title":{"rendered":"Geothermal Heating Could Make Life Possible on the Super Earth Planet at Barnard\u2019s Star"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7MPAHjU7CB8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In 2018, scientists announced the discovery of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.universetoday.com\/140561\/super-earth-planet-found-around-one-of-the-closest-stars-to-us-but-its-probably-a-terrible-place-to-live\/\">extrasolar planet orbiting Barnard\u2019s star<\/a>, an M-type (red dwarf) that is just 6 light years away. Using the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.universetoday.com\/138014\/radial-velocity-method\/\">Radial Velocity method<\/a>, the research team responsible for the discovery determined that this exoplanet (Barnard\u2019s Star b) was at least 3.2 times as massive as Earth and experienced average surface temperatures of about &minus;170 \u00b0C (&minus;274 \u00b0F) \u2013 making it both a \u201cSuper-Earth\u201d and \u201cice planet\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Based on these findings, it was a foregone conclusion that Barnard b would be hostile to life as we know it. But according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www1.villanova.edu\/villanova\/media\/pressreleases\/2019\/0110.html\">new study<\/a> by a team of researchers from <a href=\"https:\/\/www1.villanova.edu\/university.html\">Villanova University<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ieec.cat\/en\/home\">Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia<\/a> (IEEC), it is possible \u2013 assuming the planet has a hot iron\/nickel core and experiences enhanced geothermal activity \u2013 that this giant iceball of a planet could actually support life.<\/p>\n<p>The findings were shared at the <a href=\"https:\/\/aas.org\/meetings\/aas233\">233<\/a><sup><a href=\"https:\/\/aas.org\/meetings\/aas233\">rd<\/a><\/sup><a href=\"https:\/\/aas.org\/meetings\/aas233\"> meeting of the American Astronomy Society<\/a> (AAS), which took place from January 6th to 10th in Seattle, Washington. The presentation, titled \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/clusty.ast.villanova.edu\/gallery\/Barnard_Poster_AAS2019.pdf\">X-Ray, UV, Optical Irradiances and Age of Barnard\u2019s Star\u2019s New Super Earth Planet \u2013 \u2018Can Life Find a Way\u2019 on such a Cold Planet<\/a>\u201d, was delivered during a press conference on January 10th and concerned findings that appeared in a recent study.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.universetoday.com\/141259\/geothermal-heating-could-make-life-possible-on-the-super-earth-planet-at-barnards-star\/\">https:\/\/www.universetoday.com\/141259\/geothermal-heating-coul...ards-star\/<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2018, scientists announced the discovery of a extrasolar planet orbiting Barnard\u2019s star, an M-type (red dwarf) that is just 6 light years away. Using the Radial Velocity method, the research team responsible for the discovery determined that this exoplanet (Barnard\u2019s Star b) was at least 3.2 times as massive as Earth and experienced average [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}