Thursday, April 27, 2006

Habitable Moons

An article on PhysOrg.com makes the case that tidal heating on moons orbiting gas giants could result in favorable conditions for life much farther from their stars than you might expect. Well, duh! That's exactly what we've seen here in our own solar system in places like Europa. Anything which expands the real estate available for life increases the chances that life exists elsewhere, so this is pretty good news for those looking for extraterrestrial life. It means other stars where we've only detected gas giants may yet harbor life on their moons. And I wouldn't rule out life on the gas giants either.

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