(ORDO NEWS) — Astronomers at the University of Tokyo have predicted that M-type red dwarf stars could have planets with oceans of liquid water.
Researchers have developed a new planet formation model that predicts the amount of seawater on exoplanets orbiting red dwarfs.
It turned out that planets with oceans can make up a few percent of the total number of planets with the Earth‘s radius near such stars.
It is widely believed that the modern oceans of the Earth were formed with the help of water-bearing rocky or icy space bodies.
Previous studies have shown that planets with moderate water content should be quite rare.
Although M-type stars are a prime target for future searches for habitable planets, it is unlikely that such habitable planets will be found.
The new model tracked the mass growth and orbital evolution of planets based on current theories of planet formation and made it possible to calculate the amount of water acquired during the growth of a rocky body.
It includes both the generation of water in a hydrogen atmosphere during the formation of a planet in a protoplanetary disk, and collisions with water-bearing comets and asteroids.
About a hundred Earth-sized planets are expected to be found in the habitable zone around M-type stars in current and future exoplanet exploration programs such as TESS and PLATO.
The results of this study predict that some of these planets will be watery planets with Earth-warm climates.
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