It is now possible to capture images of planets that could potentially sustain life around nearby stars, thanks to advances reported by an international team of astronomers in the journal Nature Communications. Source: https://phys.org/news/2021-02-life-sustaining-planets.html…
Tag: Astronomy Astrobiology
Can super-Earth interior dynamics set the table for habitability?
New research led by Carnegie’s Yingwei Fei provides a framework for understanding the interiors of super-Earths—rocky exoplanets between 1.5 and 2 times the size of our home planet—which is a prerequisite to assess their potential for habitability. Planets of this size are among the most abundant in exoplanetary systems. The paper is published in Nature Communications. Source: https://phys.org/news/2021-02-super-earth-interior-dynamics-table-habitability.html…
Evidence for substance at liquid-gas boundary on exoplanet WASP-31b
One of the properties that make a planet suitable for life is the presence of a weather system. Exoplanets are too far away to directly observe this, but astronomers can search for substances in the atmosphere that make a weather system possible. Researchers from SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research and the University of Groningen have now found evidence on exoplanet…
If a planet has a lot of methane in its atmosphere, life is the most likely cause
The ultra-powerful James Webb Space Telescope will launch soon. Once it’s deployed and in position at the Earth-Sun Lagrange Point 2, it’ll begin work. One of its jobs is to examine the atmospheres of exoplanets and look for biosignatures. It should be simple, right? Just scan the atmosphere until you find oxygen, then close your laptop and head to the pub:…
An updated way to calculate the likelihood of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations
A small team of researchers from California Institute of Technology, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Santiago High School has developed an updated version of an old equation to calculate the likely existence of extraterrestrial civilizations. The team has uploaded their paper to the arXiv preprint server. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-12-likelihood-extraterrestrial-civilizations.html…
Building blocks of life can form long before stars
An international team of scientists have shown that glycine, the simplest amino acid and an important building block of life, can form under the harsh conditions that govern chemistry in space. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-11-blocks-life-stars.html…
Tree rings may hold clues to impacts of distant supernovas on Earth
Massive explosions of energy happening thousands of light-years from Earth may have left traces in our planet’s biology and geology, according to new research by University of Colorado Boulder geoscientist Robert Brakenridge. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-11-tree-clues-impacts-distant-supernovas.html…
Radioactive elements may be crucial to the habitability of rocky planets
The amount of long-lived radioactive elements incorporated into a rocky planet as it forms may be a crucial factor in determining its future habitability, according to a new study by an interdisciplinary team of scientists at UC Santa Cruz. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-11-radioactive-elements-crucial-habitability-rocky.html…
Assessing the habitability of planets around old red dwarfs
A new study using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope gives new insight into an important question: how habitable are planets that orbit the most common type of stars in the Galaxy? The target of the new study, as reported in our press release, is Barnard’s Star, which is one of the closest stars to Earth at…
The implications of signs of life on Venus?
The planet Venus has arguably remained less captivating than, say, the legendary tennis star or, for that matter, the women’s razor blade company—both of those Venuses have at least enjoyed ample airtime on cable TV. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-10-implications-life-venus.html…