There may be exoplanets even better adapted to life than the Earth



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The search for a livable exoplanet has been frustrating. Although we have found a group of rocky planets in orbit at a good distance from their star, the research that has been conducted has essentially only revealed sterile and poisoned rocks interspersed with deadly stellar rockets.

But according to new research using computer modeling to explore conditions that may exist on different types of exoplanets, there may be places where life thrives – and even more so than on Earth.

And all of this has to do with the oceans.

"Our work was aimed at identifying the exoplanet oceans that have the greatest ability to accommodate an abundant and active life in the world," explained geophysicist Stephanie Olson of the University of Chicago.

"Life in the Earth's oceans depends on upwelling (ascending flow) that returns nutrients from the dark depths of the ocean to the sunny parts of the ocean where photosynthesis lives. that we must search for exoplanets. "

Olson and his team used software called ROCKE-3D developed by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies to model rocky exoplanets. They modeled a range of different exoplanets to explore, based on ocean circulation, that would be most likely to develop and sustain life.

They found that thicker atmospheres associated with lower rotational speeds and the presence of continents all resulted in higher ascent rates.

"It's a surprising finding," Olson said.

"This shows us that the conditions on some exoplanets with favorable ocean circulation patterns might be better suited to a life more abundant or more active than life on Earth."

We know that salty oceans are probably there, beyond the solar system. In addition to the Earth, we know that Mars was once rather liquid, for example. And there are also moons – Europa, Enceladus, Callisto and Ganymede are among the great moons of the solar system that seem to have liquid oceans.

These close worlds, however, do not meet the criteria defined by the search. Mars is dry and has a thin murmur of atmosphere, and the enumerated moons also have atmospheres barely there; We are not sure either of their continental status.

But there are many more exoplanets in the galaxy than moons in the solar system. Last year, scientists published an estimate that up to 35% of all known exoplanets larger than Earth should be water rich.

Until now, the first criterion in the search for habitable exoplanets was to determine if a planet was in the "habitable zone" – where temperatures are not so high that liquid oceans would vaporize, nor so cold that they would not freeze.

This new research adds some parameters that could be used in future research and could even enlighten the development of optimized instruments to detect these parameters.

"In our quest for life in the universe, we should target the subset of habitable planets that will be most favorable to large biospheres active on a global scale," said Olson, "because these are the planets where life will be the easiest to detect – and where the non-detections will be the most significant. "

The research was presented at the Goldschmidt Geochemistry congress in Barcelona.

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