11 MAY 2021
We have precisely one data point against which to measure exoplanets for habitability: Earth. As far as we know, life has evolved only on this one pale blue dot, orbiting a single star in the middle of a spiral arm of an otherwise unremarkable galaxy.
Most stars in the Milky Way, however, are not like the Sun, hanging around in space all alone. Instead, up to 85 percent of stars may have at least one companion locked in mutual orbit (so it s nice that the Sun has us to keep it company).
This, naturally, complicates the search for life, since potential habitability is easier to assess around single stars. Binary companions bring additional gravitational interactions and stellar radiation to muck things up for any microbes attempting to squirm out of the primordial ooze.
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New Study From University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Identifies Five Double-Sun Planets That Could Support Life
May 11, 2021 GMT
New Study From University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Identifies Five Double-Sun Planets That Could Support Life
URBANA, Ill. - May 11, 2021 - ( Newswire.com )
Luke Skywalker’s view of two suns in
Star Wars is fictional, but recent research from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign found that five known systems having double-star planets like Tatooine could support life.
“We used data collected by the Kepler spacecraft such as the mass of the stars, how bright the stars are, the location of a giant planet, and other parameters to create a methodology to identify systems with two suns that can host habitable Earth-like planets,” said Siegfried Eggl, faculty member in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Cham
May 9, 2021
Astronomers have identified 5 multi-star systems that have stable habitable zones. This means that any rocky worlds that may exist in those zones could potentially have life.
Artist’s concept of a sunrise on a planet with 2 suns, via Shutterstock.
Planets orbiting in their stars’
not too close and
not too far from their stars. They’re in a place where water might exist as a liquid on a rocky planet. We tend to think of a planet in the Goldilocks zone of a
single star, similar to Earth in our solar system. But what about multiple star systems? Do habitable zones exist in systems of two, three or more stars? Astronomers from New York University Abu Dhabi and the University of Washington show that it is indeed possible. Using a new mathematical model, they found that at least five such known systems – all within 6,000 light-years of Earth – have stable habitable zones where hypothetical planets could harbor life.
Star Wars Day: Watch Out Tatooine! Five Binary Stars Could Be Hiding Earth-Like Planets That Support Life forbes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from forbes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Researchers Identify Five Double Star Systems Potentially Suitable For Life Source: FRONTIERS
Dynamically informed habitable zones for the Kepler-16, Kepler-34, and Kepler-35 systems. Plots in the left column show the different types of habitable zones without the presence of the known giant planets. The right column includes the influence of the known giant planets. Red colored regions correspond to uninhabitable areas, blue, green, yellow, and purple colors denote the PHZ, the EHZ, the AHZ, and unstable areas according to Holman and Wiegert (1999) stability criterion, respectively. Violet colored areas mark regions of dynamical instability caused by the giant planet in the system (Petrovich, 2015 dynamical stability criterion). The vertical black lines denote the classical habitable zone limits, while the horizontal white line in the left column plots marks the current eccentricity of the binary star orbit. In the right column graphs, the white line marks the curr