[ad_1]
The quest for extraterrestrial life is based on the results of planetary exploration, but some scientists believe that humans should look instead at moons.
A team of Australian and Californian researchers claim to have identified more than a hundred planets. Milky Way who may have moons that could be privileged targets in the quest for extraterrestrial life.
Their discoveries will also be used to help develop a powerful new telescope that will be able to search for biosignatures, or the warning signs of life. we know it, in the moons of the other planets.
Looking For Extraterrestrial Life
In a new article published in the Astrophysical Journal Astrophysicists from the University of South Queensland and the University of California, Riverside says that & # 39; 39 they found 121 giant planets outside the solar system that may be surrounded by moons that could serve as hosts for life.
The new study is based on data collected by NA The Kepler mission of SA, which was launched in 2009 with the specific goal of finding telluric planets in habitable areas of other solar systems of the galaxy.
The habitable zone is the ideal zone of the solar system where the temperatures are not too hot or cold so that the water can exist in the three states: solid, liquid and gas.
The main goal of Kepler is to search for telluric planets or planets with rocky terrain like Earth's. However, researchers believe that it is not yet time to discount gaseous giants.
In this solar system, there are 175 known moons in orbit around the eight planets. Most of them are found around the gaseous giants Jupiter and Saturn, which are outside the habitable zone. In other solar systems, it is quite possible that giants with rocky moons thrive in the habitable zone, where living conditions abound.
"Including rocky exomons in our search for life in space will dramatically increase the places we can look at," says planetary astrophysicist Stephen Kane of the Earths Alternative Astrobiology Center. UCR
Potential to find extraterrestrial life on moons
Researchers say moons are prime candidates in the quest for extraterrestrial life. One of the reasons is that they receive light and energy from the central star in their planetary system. They also draw radiation reflected from the surface of their planets.
Although researchers have not yet identified the specific moons where life might be hiding, they have now added 121 new places to start the search. Their next goal is to identify the best exoplanets with moons that could serve as a potential seat for exploring extraterrestrial life.
In this solar system alone, the giant gas moons are full of promise. Just recently, NASA confirmed that Saturn's moon Encelade is home to complex carbon-rich organic molecules that are essential to life.
Enceladus has long been known to house all the ingredients of life. Experts have every reason to believe that the moon has a vast ocean of water hidden beneath its surface in the south pole of the moon.
More than a decade ago, the Herschel Space Observatory of the European Space Agency observed giant plumes. water sprayed in the atmosphere of the moon.
This suggests that hydrothermal vents exist deep in the underground ocean of Enceladus. On Earth, similar hydrothermal vents have created primordial bacteria that have become the first life forms on the planet.
You like history
Source link
