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Is Our Environment Special?

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The Earth as a Distant Planet

Part of the book series: Astronomy and Astrophysics Library ((AAL))

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Abstract

We are using our planet as the reference point for interpreting future observations of terrestrial exoplanets. However, our guide may turn out to be wrong if for some reason the Earth and its environment are exceptional. To gain some insight on this fundamental problem, in this last chapter we will discuss three basic questions for which we do not yet have complete answers: Is our Sun special? How common are the planetary systems such as our own? And finally, Is the Earth something unique?

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See a short erratum in The Astrophysical Journal (2008) 689:2, 1457, which does not affect the conclusions of the paper.

  2. 2.

    Other mechanisms have been proposed such as fission (a star splits in two, a rather unlikely process), capture (requiring high stellar densities) and disk fragmentation.

  3. 3.

    Physical process in which kinetic energy cascades from large to small spatial scales.

  4. 4.

    It specifies the mass distribution of a newly formed stellar population and it is frequently assumed to be a simple power law (Miller and Scalo 1979).

  5. 5.

    The distance from the core where stars orbit the galaxy at the same rate as its spiral arm structure does.

  6. 6.

    Since its formation, the Sun has made 16 revolutions around the Galaxy with billions of gravitational interactions.

  7. 7.

    Dimensionless quantity given by z = (λ − λref) ∕ λref, where (λ − λref) express the difference between the observed and emitted wavelengths of an object. It is related to the expansion of the Universe.

  8. 8.

    It is dominated by bulges and elliptical galaxies, where most of the mass of the Universe resides.

  9. 9.

    The respective time scales for core-surface coupling would be 100 Ma for slow-rotators and only 10 Ma for fast-rotators.

  10. 10.

    Defined as the sum of the environmental factors influencing the behaviour and traits expressed by an organism.

  11. 11.

    The authors consider a close encounter as when two objects pass within 1,000 AU of each other.

  12. 12.

    Reducing the number of planets and increasing the spacing between them.

  13. 13.

    This process, called dynamical relaxation, also operates in star clusters and in entire galaxies.

  14. 14.

    Five HCN molecules can link up to form adenine, one of the four chemical bases of DNA.

  15. 15.

    We quote here a famous phrase of Charles Darwin (1809–1882) about the origin of life, contained in a letter to the botanist Joseph Hooker.

  16. 16.

    A Venusian sidereal day (243 Earth days) lasts more than a Venusian year (224.7 Earth days).

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  1. Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Tenerife, Spain

    M. Vázquez, E. Pallé & P. Montañés Rodríguez

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  1. M. Vázquez
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  2. E. Pallé
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  3. P. Montañés Rodríguez
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Vázquez, M., Pallé, E., Rodríguez, P.M. (2010). Is Our Environment Special?. In: The Earth as a Distant Planet. Astronomy and Astrophysics Library. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1684-6_9

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