Talk:Delta Pavonis

Best SETI target?

I wonder why Maggie Turnbull and Jill Tarter selected δ Pavonis as the best candidate of the nearest 100 stars. Sure, it lacks a companion, and is metal-rich which makes it an interesting target. The problem is, the star is old and is beginning to evolve out from the Main sequence. It has been estimated that only in two billion years (or less) the Earth will become inhabitable due to the increased solar luminosity, but even at that time the Sun is still firmly a dwarf star. It's hard to see how any Earth-like planet could have survived the brightening of δ Pavonis billions of years ago. Of course it could have had frozen planets waiting for the brightening of the star, but it will be a short time compared to the lifetime of the star when such planets can be habitable making the emergence of life there difficult (not to mention intelligent life). So, in my opinion, if there were any intelligent life supporting planets orbiting δ Pavonis, the all would be dead by now.--JyriL ^talk 20:33, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I wouldn't say that Delta Pav is shortly before becoming a red giant. According to its mass (close to the solar mass) the red giant stage won't start before an age of about 10 or 12 billion years. However, Porto de Mello et al. (2006, the first reference) propose a larger mass of about 1.25 solar masses in contrast to about 1.02 solar masses according to the second paper in the references list.--SiriusB 09:56, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree there does seem to be a conflict in the data. However, there is nothing to say that a planet couldn't become Earth-like later in the star's evolutionary history. (I.e. it starts out outside the habitable zone as a frozen world, but eventually starts to thaw and develop oceans.)—RJH (talk) 20:30, 9 November 2009 (UTC)