Almost half a century ago the creators of Star Wars imagined a life-sustaining planet, Tatooine, orbiting a pair of stars. Now, 44 years later, scientists have found new evidence that […]
habitable
Posted inHabitable Zones
How Likely Are Snowball Episodes Near The Inner Edge Of The Habitable Zone?
Understanding when global glaciations occur on Earth-like planets is a major challenge in climate evolution research. Most models of how greenhouse gases like CO2 evolve with time on terrestrial planets […]
Posted inHabitable Zones
Near Real-time Precipitable Water Vapour Monitoring For Correcting Near-infrared Observations Using Satellite Remote Sensing
In the search for small exoplanets orbiting cool stars whose spectral energy distributions peak in the near infrared, the strong absorption of radiation in this region due to water vapour […]
Posted inHabitable Zones
Super-Earths, M Dwarfs, And Photosynthetic Organisms: Habitability In The Lab
In a few years, space telescopes will investigate our Galaxy to detect evidence of life, mainly by observing rocky planets. In the last decade, the observation of exoplanet atmospheres and […]
Posted inHabitable Zones, Press Release
Dim Prospects for Transmission Spectra of Ocean Earths Around M Stars
The search for water-rich Earth-sized exoplanets around low-mass stars is rapidly gaining attention because they represent the best opportunity to characterize habitable planets in the near future. Understanding the atmospheres […]
Posted inHabitable Zones, Press Release
Earth's Magnetic Field May Be Responsible For Its Water
A study by scientists at The Australian National University (ANU) on the magnetic fields of planets has found that most planets discovered in other solar systems are unlikely to be […]
Posted inHabitable Zones, Press Release
Photosynthesis on Habitable Planets Around low-mass Stars
We show that planets around M-dwarfs with M⋆≲0.2M⊙ may not receive enough photons in the photosynthetically active range of 400-750 nm to sustain Earth-like biospheres. As a result of the […]
Posted inHabitable Zones, Press Release
Observability of Molecular Species in a Nitrogen Dominated Atmosphere for 55 Cancri e
One of the key goals of exoplanet science is the atmospheric characterisation of super-Earths. Atmospheric abundances provide insight on the formation and evolution of those planets and help to put […]
Posted inHabitable Zones, Press Release
Dependence of Biological Activity on the Surface Water Fraction of Planets
One of the unique features associated with the Earth is that the fraction of its surface covered by land is comparable to that spanned by its oceans and other water […]
Posted inHabitable Zones, Press Release
Water Worlds Could Support Life
The conditions for life surviving on planets entirely covered in water are more fluid than previously thought, opening up the possibility that water worlds could be habitable, according to a […]