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Findings will help better identify Earth-like planets that could sustain life. Astronomers have identified more than 4,000, and counting, confirmed exoplanets – planets orbiting stars other than the sun – but only a fraction have the potential to sustain life.

Now, new research from UBC’s Okanagan campus is using the geology of early planet formation to help identify those that may be capable of supporting life.

“The discovery of any planet is pretty exciting, but almost everyone wants to know if there are smaller Earth-like planets with iron cores,” says Dr...

Previous studies had hinted that something like subduction may have been happening on Jupiter’s moon, Europa. A new study provides geophysical evidence that it could indeed be happening on the moon’s icy shell. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute

Jupiter’s moon Europa could have subduction zones, a new study shows, which could supply chemical food for life to a subsurface ocean. A Brown University study provides new evidence that the icy shell of Jupiter’s moon Europa may have plate tectonics similar to those on Earth. The study uses computer modeling to show that subduction – when a tectonic plate slides underneath another and sinks deep into a planet’s interior – is physically possible in Europa’s ice shell...