Livin’ on Gliese Street?

Life here on earth getting you down, Bunky? Global warming freaking you out? Damned recovery taking way too long with the payoff still being that the United States is a nation in decline? Deficit got you shakin’ in your boots? Worried about being blown to bits by a terrorist hell-bent on the destruction of the “Great Satan,” and you live in the heart of that devil? Scared about somebody in Pakistan selling a nuke to some crazy who’d just as much blow your berg all to hell? Well there’s this place, a tad off the beaten orbit – so to speak – that holds some promise. I can assure you that it will be peaceful, but it is a bit of a schlep, and the facilities there are less than primitive. But how’d you like to life in a place where your sun never sets (at least for half the planet), where the horizon shows of a warm red glow all t he time? Where you can park all those worries, put them behind you, as if they never existed?

The slide on over here and look at what you can zoom off to in a short rocket-powered journey that would take 3,000 lifetimes (OK, this is longer-term planning for your ancestors and a likely television series for ABC; it’s 20 light-years away) to a planet circling the red dwarf sun Gliese. If you get there, maybe you can give that life-providing orb a better name than Gliese 581d. In the constellation we know as Libra. Figured Gliese 581e was just too cold, but 581d is just about right… Oh, except for the gravity – 581d is about 5.6 more massive than Earth – but count on evolution to solve that one in a few additional centuries… “Honey, I think you’ve put on a few pounds,” as your once svelte 115 lb wife tips the Gliese 581d scales at roughly 230 lbs! Kind slows down your morning jog a tad, but hey, gotta figure you’re gonna just have to get used to it.

Well, scientists seem to be on the verge of confirming what their computer analyses suggest: that Gleise 581d may just be the first plant they’ve found that can sustain human life. But there are no Wall*Marts or McDonald’s out anywhere to be found. Liability or opportunity? Here’s what they think the planet is really like: “So, welcome to our future home. There are no days on Gliese 581d; one side is perpetually light and one side is perpetually dark. People thought this would mean that the night side would be perpetually frozen. But a new study by the Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique at the Institute Pierre Simon Laplace found that because of the local star's red light that penetrates deep into the heavy carbon atmosphere, the planet regulates heat quite well. Downside: It will always be a sort of red-hued dusk. And gravity i s twice as strong, meaning it won't be too pleasant to walk around. But at least we'll be able to live there. The problem, as with most things in space, is the distance. At 20 light years away, it would take 300,000 years to get there.

“There is still a chance that all these measurements are wrong, or that the planet is rendered uninhabitable by too much helium in the atmosphere. Also, given that we're basing these measurements on light from 20 years ago, the people of Gliese 581d could be destroying their environment as we speak. By the time we arrive, we might find a planet in worse shape than Earth is.” FastCompany.com, May 16^th. There may be closer planets, but as we consume the resources on the one we have at a rapidly expanding rate, Earth-folks may soon need to begin looking for our next home planet sooner than we might have expected. You may consider real estate future on 581d… could be a big payoff… someday. After all, it’s easier when it’s Gliesier!

I’m Peter Dekom, and it does seem a tad easier simply to take better care of the planet we already have!