![\"Earthlike_moon_extrasolar_gas_giant_small\"](\"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2009\/08\/Earthlike_moon_extrasolar_gas_giant_small.jpg\" "\\"Earthlike_moon_extrasolar_gas_giant_small\\"")
<\/a>A lot of attention is given to the possibility of life-friendly planets<\/em>, but I see very little attention given to the possibility of life-friendly moons<\/em>.<\/p>\nFor example, we’ve found lots of very large planets around other stars – largely because larger planets are easier to find with the techniques we use. But, often we gloss over these discoveries because they are large planets (like Jupiter) which are considered to have a low probability of life. (They’re also often quite close to their parent star, which means they are quite hot – again, unfriendly for life.)<\/p>\n
However, it’s worth remembering that moons of such planets might indeed be the right size and temperature for liquid water to form – and thus, be potentially life-bearing. Indeed, given how common larger planets are, and how larger planets almost always have lots and lots of moons, it stands to reason that it might be more likely to find an “Earth-like” moon than an “Earth-like” planet.<\/p>\n
Of course, at the moment we have no real way to detect moons of extrasolar planets – so for the time being, we’ll continue to focus mostly on finding planets, not moons. But once we do get the ability to detect moons (perhaps when we build some larger space-based telescope arrays), I think we’ll make some exciting discoveries when we look at existing larger extrasolar planets with an eye towards finding their moons.<\/p>\n
In any case, the search for planets (and moons) outside of our own solar system that might be suitable for life will continue, and these discoveries will continue to astound and amaze us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some thoughts about planets outside our own solar system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[199],"tags":[123,6],"class_list":["post-2762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-opinion","tag-astronomy","tag-space","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-Iy","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":237,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2004\/09\/03\/building-ships\/","url_meta":{"origin":2762,"position":0},"title":"Building Ships","author":"Keith Survell","date":"September 3, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Pulling about 11,000 names of asteroids and minor planets into a database and then naming fictional ships based on them. Geeky? YOU BET!!","rel":"","context":"In "personal"","block_context":{"text":"personal","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1183,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/06\/22\/space-the-final-frontier\/","url_meta":{"origin":2762,"position":1},"title":"Space: The Final Frontier","author":"Keith Survell","date":"June 22, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I was watching a show on the Discovery Channel last night called \"When We Left Earth.\" It was quite good, and as these sorts of shows often do, it got me thinking. When I was a kid, I was always facinated by space. I built model spaceships, I pretended that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "personal"","block_context":{"text":"personal","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":194,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2004\/07\/01\/nasa-jpl-solar-system-simulator\/","url_meta":{"origin":2762,"position":2},"title":"NASA – JPL Solar System Simulator","author":"Keith Survell","date":"July 1, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"NASA - JPL Solar System Simulator: This is so cool - you can simulate views from just about anywhere in the solar system. Bring out the space geek in everyone!","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1102,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/05\/08\/on-an-inconvenient-truth\/","url_meta":{"origin":2762,"position":3},"title":"On “An Inconvenient Truth”","author":"Keith Survell","date":"May 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I finally got around to watching \"An Inconvenient Truth\" tonight, and I have to say, I'm all riled up. There can be no doubt that climate change is real and is caused by human activity. That's not what I'm all riled up about. I'm all riled up about what we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Stormy Weather","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2008\/05\/580865496_7c1177bc8d_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1605,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2009\/01\/01\/they-really-dont-make-em-like-they-used-to\/","url_meta":{"origin":2762,"position":4},"title":"They REALLY Don’t Make ’em Like They Used To","author":"Keith Survell","date":"January 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the latest in a series (previous entries here and here) on my quest to have a rock-solid, reliable Internet Gateway Router. When I last wrote about this, I had gone to Netgear Tech Support, and they said my router was bad, and we were going to exchange it.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "tech"","block_context":{"text":"tech","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Network Configuration","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2009\/01\/knetconfig.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2744,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2009\/08\/09\/what-lord-of-the-flies-taught-us-about-free-markets\/","url_meta":{"origin":2762,"position":5},"title":"What “The Lord of the Flies” Taught us about Free Markets","author":"Keith Survell","date":"August 9, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Taking the lessons of the book \"The Lord of the Flies\" and applying them to the so-called \"Free Market.\"","rel":"","context":"In "My Opinion"","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Flickr image by Enrico Fuente","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/123\/346158990_1ca071e203_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2762\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}