Goldilocks zone tagged posts

A nearby super-Earth may be one of the best chances yet to search for life beyond our solar system. A newly detected super-Earth just 20 light-years away is giving scientists one of the most promising chances yet to search for life beyond our solar system. The discovery of the exoplanet orbiting in the habitable zone of its star was made possible by advanced spectrographs designed at Penn State and by decades of observations from telescopes around the world.

A possible “supe...

A new class of exoplanet very different to our own, but which could support life, has been identified by astronomers, which could greatly accelerate the search for life outside our Solar System.

In the search for life elsewhere, astronomers have mostly looked for planets of a similar size, mass, temperature and atmospheric composition to Earth. However, astronomers from the University of Cambridge believe there are more promising possibilities out there.

The researchers have identified a new class of habitable planets, dubbed ‘Hycean’ planets—hot, ocean-covered planets with hydrogen-rich atmospheres—which are more numerous and observable than Earth-like planets.

The researchers say the results, reported in The Astrophysical Journal, could mean that finding biosignatures o...

An artist’s rendering of an exoplanet is shown. An exoplanet is a planet that exists outside Earth’s solar system. Credit: Illustration credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech

As one of the world’s leading “planet hunters,” SF State University astronomer Stephen Kane focuses on finding “habitable zones,” areas where water could exist in a liquid state on a planet’s surface if there’s sufficient atmospheric pressure. Kane and his team, including former undergraduate student Miranda Waters, examined the habitable zone on a planetary system 14 light years away.

“The Wolf 1061 system is important because it is so close and that gives other opportunities to do follow-up studies to see if it does indeed have life,” Kane said...

Artist’s impression of the planet orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri. Credit: ESO

Dimitra Atri, an astrobiologist with the Blue Marble Institute of Space Science, has run simulations of planet Proxima b, an exoplanet circling the star Proxima Centauri, which could possibly support life. Last August, a team of scientists identified a planet circling Proxima Centauri—at 4.2 light-years away, the red dwarf is the closet star to our own sun and the discovery of a planet in its Goldilocks zone excited the astronomy community because it represented the possibility extraterrestrial life. Since that time, Atri has created and run simulations meant to measure the impact of stellar flares on the planet and whether they might be enough to prevent or allow life to exist on the planet.

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