Scientists Have Drawn a Perfect Outline of "Super-Habitable Planet

According to a recent report by the American Fun Science website, the latest research by American and German scientists indicates that there may be 24 planets outside the solar system that are more habitable than the Earth. These planets are "older", warmer and wetter, and a bit bigger than the Earth. Some of these planets may be excellent places to find alien life. The research was led by Professor Dirk Schulze-Marcucci of Washington State University, who worked with astronomers at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and Villanova University to make the latest discoveries.

Among the extrasolar planets discovered by astronomers so far, most are not conducive to the survival of life, but in the habitable zone of stars, there are many planets that may be suitable for life to thrive. The habitable zone means that the distance between the planet and the star is just right, so that its surface temperature is not lukewarm for life as we know it. The goal of Marcucci’s team is to identify these most potential "super-habitable" exoplanets, which are not only located in the habitable zone of stars, but also have other characteristics that may be more habitable than the Earth.

After analysis, the researchers drew the outline of a perfect "super-habitable planet": the planet will orbit a K dwarf star slightly colder than the sun (yellow dwarf), about 5 to 8 billion years old, 10% larger than the earth, and on average The temperature is 5℃ higher than that of the earth, the oxygen content in the atmosphere is between 25% and 30%, the land is scattered and the water source is abundant, and it also has plate structure or similar geological processes to recover minerals and nutrients and create a variety of Habitat and topography. In addition, the size of the planetary satellite is 1%-10% of its own, and it revolves around it at an appropriate distance. They identified 24 celestial bodies based on this standard, of which 2 exoplanets were Kepler 1126b and Kepler 69c, 9 orbiting stars of appropriate types, 16 of the right age, and 5 of the right temperature. Only KOI 5715.01 satisfies all the above conditions. But its surface temperature depends on the intensity of the greenhouse effect in its atmosphere.

The researchers said that since these 24 planets are more than 100 light-years away from the Earth, even with the most powerful telescopes to date, some of them cannot be studied now, but it is important to find out what makes a planet a "super-habitable planet". , Because scientists are likely to discover one of these planets within 100 light years. If that is the case, that planet should be our first choice for discovering whether there are other life in the universe. Researchers believe that it is not possible to search for a habitable planet based solely on the habitability of the earth. Markucci said: "We must focus on finding the planets that are most promising for complex life to thrive, because there may be planets that are more suitable for life than the earth."