(ORDO NEWS) — The area between the night and day side of the planet is a logical place to look for life on other planets. This narrow area may actually be home to extraterrestrial life forms.
There are millions of planets in which one part is constantly bathed in the light of a star, and the other is hidden in darkness.
The area between these two sides is called the “terminator zone” and it is on it that there may be the most comfortable conditions for the emergence of life.
Terminator zone habitability
Researchers at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) have modified software commonly used to study Earth‘s climate to simulate planets with one side facing a star.
To do this, scientists stopped the rotation of the Earth in the model.
The authors believe that the results of their work could open up an entirely new group of potentially habitable exoplanets.
Many of these are around relatively dim M dwarf stars, which make up about 70% of the stars we can see from Earth, so there are plenty of planets to explore.
The researchers believe that the most promising habitable terminator planets will be those on rocky exoplanets rather than those covered in water.
It’s all about the atmosphere, which redistributes heat throughout the planet, equalizing the temperature.
“We found that if there is a lot of land on the planet, the habitable terminator scenario is much more likely,” said Aomawa Shields, associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California and co-author of the study.
“These new and exotic states of habitability that our team is uncovering are no longer the stuff of science fiction these states can be climate-stable.”
—
Online:
Contact us: [email protected]
Our Standards, Terms of Use: Standard Terms And Conditions.