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Aurelia and Blue Moon are hypothetical examples of a planet and a moon on which extraterrestrial life could evolve. They are the outcome of a collaboration between television company Blue Wave Productions Ltd. and a group of American and British scientists who were collectively commissioned by National Geographic. The team used a combination of accretion theory, climatology, and xenobiology to imagine the most likely locations for extraterrestrial life and most probable evolutionary path such life would take. The beginning concepts appeared in a two-part television broadcast called ''Alien Worlds'', aired in 2005 in the UK by Channel 4. Channel 4 has also released a DVD of the program. The show was also aired on the National Geographic Channel as ''Extraterrestrial'' on Monday, May 30, 2005 and focuses more on the alien life on the two worlds. The first program in the series focused on Aurelia, a hypothetical Earth-sized extrasolar planet orbiting a red dwarf star in our local area of the Milky Way. The second focuses on a moon called Blue Moon, which orbits an enormous gas giant that is itself orbiting a binary star system. Aurelia and Blue Moon both featured in the touring exhibition The Science of Aliens. ==Reasons for theorizing== Discoveries regarding extrasolar planets were first published in 1989 raising the prospect of whether life (as we know it or imagine it) could be supported on other planets. It is currently believed that for this to happen a planet must orbit in a relatively narrow band around its parent star, where temperatures are suitable for water to exist as a liquid. This region is called the habitable zone. The most Earth-like exoplanets yet found, Gliese 667 Cc and Gliese 581 g (disputed), have masses larger than Earth's and orbit red dwarf stars in the habitable zone. The sensitivity of current detection methods makes it difficult for scientists to search for terrestrial planets smaller than this. To allow smaller bodies to be detected, NASA was studying a project called the Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF), a two-telescope concept slated to begin launching around 2014. However, Congressional spending limits under House Resolution 20 passed on January 31, 2007 by the U.S. House of Representatives and February 14 by the U.S. Senate have all but canceled the program. Prior to TPF's cancellation, astrophysicists had begun speculating about the best places to point the telescope in order to find Earth-like planets. Whereas life on Earth has formed around a stable yellow dwarf, solar twins are not as common in the galaxy as red dwarf stars (which have a mass of less than one-half that of the Sun and consequently emit less heat), or bigger, brighter blue giants. In addition, it is estimated that more than a quarter of all stars are at least binary systems, with as many as 10% of these systems containing more than two stars (trinary etc.)—unlike our own sun, which has no companion. Therefore, it may be prudent to consider how life might evolve in such environments. Such speculation may still be of use should a future planet-finding telescope be launched, and possibly for NASA's Kepler mission. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Aurelia and Blue Moon」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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