habitable zone tagged posts

Interest in Earth-like planets orbiting within the habitable zone of their host stars has surged, driven by the quest to discover life beyond our solar system. But the habitability of such planets, known as exoplanets, is influenced by more than just their distance from the star.

A new study by Rice University’s David Alexander and Anthony Atkinson extends the definition of a habitable zone for planets to include their star’s magnetic field...

Exoplanets are common in our galaxy, and some even orbit in the so-called habitable zone of their star. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has been busy observing a few of these small, potentially habitable planets, and astronomers are now hard at work analyzing Webb data. We invite Drs...

How they can prevent life in other planetary systems. Giant gas planets can be agents of chaos, ensuring nothing lives on their Earth-like neighbors around other stars. New studies show, in some planetary systems, the giants tend to kick smaller planets out of orbit and wreak havoc on their climates.

Jupiter, by far the biggest planet in our solar system, plays an important protective role. Its enormous gravitational field deflects comets and asteroids that might otherwise hit Earth, helping create a stable environment for life. However, giant planets elsewhere in the universe do not necessarily protect life on their smaller, rocky planet neighbors.

A new Astronomical Journal p...

Astrophysicists discover the closest and oldest ultracool dwarf binary ever observed. Northwestern University and the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego) astrophysicists have discovered the tightest ultracool dwarf binary system ever observed.

The two stars are so close that it takes them less than one Earth day to revolve around each other. In other words, each star’s “year” lasts just 17 hours.

The newly discovered ...