One of the most fundamental questions in exoplanetology is to determine whether a given planet is habitable. We estimate the relative likelihood of a planet’s propensity towards habitability by considering […]
habitability
Posted inHabitable Zones, Press Release
Radio Exploration of Planetary Habitability: Conference Summary
Radio Exploration of Planetary Habitability was the fifth in the series of American Astronomical Society’s Topical Conference Series. Notable aspects of the conference included the interdisciplinary nature of both the […]
Posted inHabitable Zones, Press Release
Extreme Atmosphere Stripping May Limit Exoplanets' Habitability
New models of massive stellar eruptions hint at an extra layer of complexity when considering whether an exoplanet may be habitable or not. Models developed for our own Sun have […]
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Press Release
Quantitative Estimates of the Surface Habitability of Kepler-452b
Kepler-452b is currently the best example of an Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of a sun-like star, a type of planet whose number of detections is expected to increase […]
Posted inHabitable Zones, Press Release
GCM Simulations of Unstable Climates in the Habitable Zone
It has recently been proposed that Earth-like planets in the outer regions of the habitable zone experience unstable climates, repeatedly cycling between glaciated and deglaciated climatic states (Menou 2015). While […]
Posted inHabitable Zones, Press Release
A Supernova at 50 pc: Effects on the Earth's Atmosphere and Biota
Recent 60Fe results have suggested that the estimated distances of supernovae in the last few million years should be reduced from 100 pc to 50 pc. Two events or series […]
Posted inHabitable Zones, Press Release
Will Earth Exist in 5 Billion Years?
What will happen to Earth when, in a few billion years’ time, the Sun is a hundred times bigger than it is today? Using the most powerful radio telescope in […]
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology, Habitable Zones, Press Release
How did Early Earth Stay Warm?
For at least a billion years of the distant past, planet Earth should have been frozen over but wasn’t. Scientists thought they knew why, but a new modeling study from […]
Posted inAstrobiology (general), Habitable Zones, Press Release
A Better Way to Learn If Alien Planets Have the Right Stuff
A new method for analyzing the chemical composition of stars may help scientists winnow the search for Earth 2.0. Yale University researchers Debra Fischer and John Michael Brewer, in a […]
Posted inHabitable Zones, Press Release
Convection in Condensible-rich Atmospheres
Condensible substances are nearly ubiquitous in planetary atmospheres. For the most familiar case-water vapor in Earth’s present climate-the condensible gas is dilute, in the sense that its concentration is everywhere […]