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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.


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  • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday August 01 2018, @03:09PM

    by fyngyrz (6567) on Wednesday August 01 2018, @03:09PM (#715709) Journal

    Living cells systems always we know of thus far communicate using chemical and electrical signals, moderated by multi-unit topology and lowest-common-denominator unit structure.

    FTFY.

    Also, our not-necessarily-complete experience in this is limited to this planet, something that in no way provides an ironclad framework for what might be going on on other planets and in other star systems. Ergo, "habitable zone" may well be complete nonsense.

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