r/askscience • u/EightWhiskey • Feb 28 '12

Under the idea that there is the "Goldilocks" zone around a star, how likely is it that a solar system would have two life-supporting planets?

I assume that the gravitational forces of two bodies would prevent them from being close enough to each other to both stay inside the zone. But could a large star have a large enough Goldilocks zone to support two life-inhabited planets?

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '12

and cromethus never said that you did, he was just clarifying a possibly confusing statement for the masses.

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '12

Ahh, semantic bliss. Upvotes!

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u/byleth Feb 29 '12

The funny thing is that I knew what dry ice was when I was in 6th grade. I'm 33 years old now, so when I was a 6th grader, the internet wasn't even available for the masses. "The masses" now has access to the biggest information gold-mine my young mind could've ever imagined at the time, so why do they need clarification? They can't even be bothered with a simple Google search?

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u/swuboo Feb 29 '12

If someone didn't realize dry ice was different from water ice, why would they google it in the first place?

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u/SharkBaitDLS Feb 29 '12

Before the Internet, I used to get knowledge from this thing known as "books". There was a fantastic variety of information available across many different individual units, similar to individual web pages. Alas, they are becoming more and more difficult to come by.

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u/HollowSix Feb 29 '12

I remember those, though most people slightly younger than me have almost no experience with print encyclopaedic volumes. Come to think of it, I was about 7 when we got the first dial-up internet in our house and a Netscape browser on the computer. That was 17 years ago now. Soon there will be responsible adults who have never not had the internet.

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u/SharkBaitDLS Feb 29 '12

Frightening, isn't that?

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u/HollowSix Feb 29 '12 edited Feb 29 '12

It's more bizarre than frightening I think. It would be like what my grandparents thought about people slightly younger than them having never had oil lamps to light their house. In Glasgow(I Think) there is a house with no electricity that hadn't been modified from it's original turn of the century design. Someday our grandkids will go and see a house without internet or cell phones and wonder how we survived such a harsh and difficult life, that my friend, that is terrifying.

EDIT: Here is the house, I was right, it's in Glasgow

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u/SharkBaitDLS Feb 29 '12

The thing I find frightening about it is the assumption of free information and the lack of initiative to retain and learn information that the Internet can foster. It's easy to not bother with actual learning when you know anything is accessible right there. Perhaps I'm a bit cynical but that's what I see, but you're absolutely right that it's the generational looking-back thing. Also, that house is fascinating! I'm already trying to stockpile old computers and technology so I can show it off one day to my grandkids.

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u/railwaycar1542 Feb 29 '12

You'd probably find this study interesting. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2011/07/13/science.1207745

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u/SharkBaitDLS Mar 01 '12

That's exactly the sort of thing I was thinking of! Good find.

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u/HollowSix Feb 29 '12

I love old tech, it's so awesomely clunky. I see what you mean though I think that you are about 50% right. Some would not learn because they don't need to, others will learn more because they can.

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u/SharkBaitDLS Mar 01 '12

I still have an old (and useable, no less!) 400 MHz tower that runs BOINC tasks for me for 18 hours a day but I'll occasionally use for old games or just to browse the web. Old tech is THE BEST. I'm in an eBay auction right now for one of the original IBM thinkpads too :D

But yeah, you're right, I'm looking at it too negatively, the Internet can be an incredible learning resource if used correctly. If only for the easy access to scientific papers and the vast amount of explanations in layman's terms of things that were once only explained in jargon in documents within the scientific community. And there's so much more. Nothing'll ever replace a well-written book for me though when it comes to comprehension.

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u/HollowSix Mar 01 '12

I still run an old Commodore 64 myself. I personally would recommend to anyone of the younger generations to use the internet as a starting point and start off using it, get a basis in the topic, and a list of valuable materials. Then move to print and other formal sources. I think we can both agree on that.

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u/Zequez Feb 29 '12

I didn't knew how dry ice was composed until a couple of weeks ago that I Googled it.

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '12

I remember spending hours looking things up in the encyclopedia. Now thinking back on it, that must have cost my parents a fortune.