Habitable Zones & Global Climate

S-Type and P-Type Habitability in Stellar Binary Systems: Results for Mars, Earth, and super-Earth Planets

By Keith Cowing
Press Release
astro-ph.EP
January 31, 2019
Filed under
S-Type and P-Type Habitability in Stellar Binary Systems: Results for Mars, Earth, and super-Earth Planets
Binar star system
SpaceRef

In Paper I and II, a comprehensive approach was utilized for the calculation of S-type and P-type habitable regions in stellar binary systems for both circular and elliptical orbits of the binary components.

It considered a joint constraint including orbital stability and a habitable region for a possible system planet through the stellar radiative energy fluxes (“radiative habitable zone”; RHZ). Specifically, the stellar S-type and P-type RHZs are calculated based on the solution of a fourth order polynomial. However, in concurrent developments, mostly during 2013 and 2014, important improvements have been made in the computation of stellar habitable zones for single stars based on updated climate models given by R. K. Kopparapu and collaborators. These models entail considerable changes for the inner and outer limits of the stellar habitable zones.

Moreover, regarding the habitability limit given by the runaway greenhouse effect, notable disparities were identified between Earth, Mars, and super-Earth planets due to differences in their atmospheric models, thus affecting their potential for habitability. It is the aim of this study to compute S-type and P-type habitable regions of binaries in response to the updated planetary models. Moreover, our study will also consider improved relationships between effective temperatures, radii, and masses for low-luminosity stars.

S-Type and P-Type Habitability in Stellar Binary Systems: A Comprehensive Approach III. Results for Mars, Earth, and super-Earth Planets

Zhaopeng Wang, Manfred Cuntz
(Submitted on 31 Jan 2019)

Comments: To appear in: The Astrophysical Journal; 49 pages, 13 figures, 13 tables
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:1901.11171 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:1901.11171v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Zhaopeng Wang
[v1] Thu, 31 Jan 2019 02:03:13 UTC (3,207 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.11171
Astrobiology

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