Looking for Life? Researchers Identify 24 Exoplanets Even More Habitable Than Earth

“Astrobiologists have identified 24 exoplanets that aren’t just potentially habitable, they’re potentially superhabitable, exhibiting an array of conditions more suitable to life than what’s seen on Earth…” reports Gizmodo: For exoplanets to be superhabitable, they should be older, larger, heavier, warmer, and wetter compared to Earth, and ideally located around stars with longer lifespans than our own. So yeah, not only is Earth inferior, so too is our Sun, according to the new research… As the new study points out, planets marginally older than Earth have a greater chance of being more habitable. When planets get old, “exhaustion of internally generated heat may result in eventual cooling, with consequences for global temperatures and atmospheric composition,” write the authors. Earth is 4.5 billion years old, but planets between the ages of 5 billion and 8 billion years are likely to be more habitable, simply from a probabilistic standpoint… To be clear, many of the criteria, such as atmospheric oxygen, plate tectonics, geomagnetism, and natural satellites, are currently beyond our ability to detect. What’s more, only two of these planets, Kepler 1126 b and Kepler-69c, are scientifically validated planets, the remainder being on the list of unconfirmed Kepler Objects of Interest. Consequently, some of these “exoplanets” might not even be planets at all… There are other limitations to consider as well. The authors are naturally biased towards Earth-like conditions, given that our planet provides the only known example of habitability. Life may proliferate under conditions not yet understood, and it’s important to keep that in mind… We also don’t know about the potential knock-off effects of these conditions. They sound good on paper, but the reality could be vastly different, as these environmental characteristics could collectively result in conditions wholly unsuitable for life. “What’s useful here is the criteria for planets that may not look exactly like Earth, but could be even more awesome locations for life,” writes CNET. “This could help us direct the resources of next-generation space telescopes like NASA’s much-delayed James Webb.”