Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by chromas on Tuesday July 31 2018, @04:53PM   Printer-friendly

With All These New Planets Found in the Habitable Zone, Maybe it's Time to Fine Tune the Habitable Zone

In the past few decades, thousands of extra-solar planets have been discovered within our galaxy. As of July 28th, 2018, a total of 3,374 extra-solar planets have been confirmed in 2,814 planetary systems. While the majority of these planets have been gas giants, an increasing number have been terrestrial (i.e. rocky) in nature and were found to be orbiting within their stars' respective habitable zones (HZ).

However, as the case of the Solar System shows, HZs do not necessary mean a planet can support life. Even though Mars and Venus are at the inner and the outer edge of the Sun's HZ (respectively), neither is capable of supporting life on its surface. And with more potentially-habitable planets being discovered all the time, a new study suggests that it might be time to refine our definition of habitable zones.

Welcome to the Inhospitable Zone.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 31 2018, @09:15PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 31 2018, @09:15PM (#715406)

    As clearly shown by venus, earth, the moon, and mars the temperature depends on how thick the atmosphere is. The brightness of the star and distance from it are only one part.

  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday July 31 2018, @09:37PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday July 31 2018, @09:37PM (#715416) Journal

    Sure. But if you have the right atmospheric density but the wrong distance to the star, the planet isn't so habitable anymore. Distance to the star can also have a strong influence on that atmosphere, e.g. Venus.

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]