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A new study exploring the dynamics of two potentially habitable exoplanets located hundreds of light-years away from the Earth revealed that the climate on these worlds could be stable, just like the one prevailing on Earth.
Identified for more than four years there are Kepler-186f and Kepler-62f exoplanets in the habitable zone or "Goldilocks" zone of their host stars – the place where the amount of star heat reaching a planet is just sufficient to allow the liquid water to get its surface.
Although the possibility of harboring liquid water makes these worlds particularly interesting, it's not the only thing needed to make the conditions conducive to livability. Factors such as climate and the ability to maintain an atmosphere also play a vital role, prompting researchers at the Technical University of Georgia to conduct a comprehensive study.
In order to understand the climatic conditions that prevail on both exoplanets, the group carried out a series of simulations to deepen the dynamics and the evolution of their axial inclination.
The angle at which the axis of a planet is tilted determines the amount of stars that reaches the surface. This greatly affects how the climate and seasons on the world in question are regulated. For example, if there is a large variation in axial inclination, the climate on a planet could be very unstable, just as it was the case on Mars.
"Mars is in the habitable zone of our solar system, but its tilt has been very unstable – ranging from zero to 60 degrees," said Gongjie Li, the main author of the system. study, in a statement. "This instability has probably contributed to the degradation of the Martian atmosphere and the evaporation of surface water."
However, this is not the case of the two exoplanets, researchers have discovered.According to their simulations, both Kepler-186f and Kepler-62f are witnessing much smaller axis tilt variations, suggesting that the climate is stable and that the seasons are regular on both worlds, much like on Earth.The axial tilt of the planet oscillates from 22.1 to 24.5 degrees every 10,000 years
"Our study is among the first to study the climatic stability of exoplanets and adds to the growing understanding of these "potentially habitable neighbors" added in the declaration. Although this conclusion does not indicate that the two exoplanets can harbor life, this suggests that they make excellent candidates for this possibility
Axial inclination variations, such as l & rsquo; The researchers described, result from the interaction between the bodies in the same system. When planets interact, the resulting gravitational influence can cause the orbital orientation to oscillate. And, if the speed of this oscillation is the same as the precession of the axis of rotation of the planet (as seen in the circular motion of a gyroscope), the axis of the planet can testify to a dramatic variation.
same interaction, but the Earth has a large moon that increases the precession of the axis of rotation of our planet and ensures that it differs from the orbital oscillation rate. This stabilizes the variation of our axial inclination compared to that of Mars, providing us with stable climatic conditions.
"It seems that the two exoplanets are very different from Mars and Earth because they have a weaker connection with their planets." Li added. "We do not know if they have moons, but our calculations show that even without satellites, the Kepler-186f and 62f spin axes would have remained constant over tens of millions of years, "he concluded.
The study, titled "Obliquity Variations of Living Area Planets Kepler 62-f and Kepler 186-f", was published in the Astronomical Journal.
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