{"id":42928,"date":"2023-03-17T10:11:31","date_gmt":"2023-03-17T10:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/?p=117197"},"modified":"2023-03-17T10:32:30","modified_gmt":"2023-03-17T10:32:30","slug":"life-could-take-hold-between-day-and-night-zones-on-distant-planets","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/rss_feed\/life-could-take-hold-between-day-and-night-zones-on-distant-planets\/","title":{"rendered":"Life could take hold between day and night zones on distant planets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Could the terminator zone on exoplanets be a key area in the search for life beyond our Solar System? <\/p>

By Iain Todd\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Friday, 17 March 2023 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

Extraterrestrial life could take hold in the \u2018terminator\u2019 zones \u2013 the line dividing night and daytime \u2013 on planets beyond our Solar System, according to a new study.<\/p>\n

Astronomers at the University of California, Irvine have been studying exoplanets<\/a> with one side that always faces the host star, just like how the same side of our Moon always faces Earth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And, just like on our Moon, the line dividing the lit section and the unlit section of the orbiting body is known as the terminator<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"""\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
The line dividing the lit and unlit side on our Moon is known as the \u2018terminator\u2019. Credit: William Ian Hamilton<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

The team behind the study say exoplanets with a permanent day side and a permanent night side are common because they orbit stars that make up about 70% of the stars in the night sky.<\/p>\n

These are so-called M-dwarf stars, and are dimmer than our Sun.<\/p>\n

These terminator zones could be just right for the emergence of life on distant exoplanets because they would offer a region that\u2019s not too hot and not too cold.<\/p>\n

This could be one of key conditions that makes a planet habitable<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want a planet that\u2019s in the sweet spot of just the right temperature for having liquid water,\u201d says Ana Lobo, a researcher at the UCI Department of Physics & Astronomy<\/a> who led the study, published in The Astrophysical Journal.<\/p>\n

Any planet on which water can pool as a liquid is considered to be potentially habitable for life as we know it, and is key in the search for life beyond Earth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While a planet\u2019s dark side might see temperatures plummet and water freeze, a planet\u2019s permanently-illuminated side might see temperatures reach scorching levels, too hot for water to remain on the surface.<\/p>\n

\"""\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
An artist\u2019s impression of a hot Jupiter; a gas giant similar to Jupiter but orbiting much closer to its host star.Credit: NASA\/Ames\/JPL-Caltech<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

\u201cThis is a planet where the dayside can be scorching hot, well beyond habitability, and the night side is going to be freezing, potentially covered in ice. You could have large glaciers on the night side,\u201d Lobo says.<\/p>\n

Lobo and Aomawa Shields, UCI associate professor of physics & astronomy, worked on models of the climates of these \u2018terminator planets\u2019 using computer software that\u2019s more commonly used to model planet Earth\u2019s climate.<\/p>\n

They modified the software to make it suited to analysing the conditions on exoplanets that always have one side facing the host star.<\/p>\n

The team say this is a key development in the study of planets beyond the Solar System that could potentially host life, which concentrates largely on water-rich planets.<\/p>\n

\"""\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Artist\u2019s impression of an ocean-rich planet. Credit: NASA<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

\u201cWe are trying to draw attention to more water-limited planets, which despite not having widespread oceans, could have lakes or other smaller bodies of liquid water, and these climates could actually be very promising,\u201d Lobo says.<\/p>\n

The study focussed on pinpointing what sort of planets and what sort of terminator zones could retain liquid water.<\/p>\n

The team found that on a water-rich planet, the side facing the star would see all its water evaporated, covering the planet in a thick layer of vapour.<\/p>\n

But if the planet has a lot of land, this effect wouldn\u2019t occur.<\/p>\n

\u201cAna has shown if there\u2019s a lot of land on the planet, the scenario we call \u2018terminator habitability\u2019 can exist a lot more easily,\u201d says Shields.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese new and exotic habitability states our team is uncovering are no longer the stuff of science fiction \u2013 Ana has done the work to show that such states can be climatically stable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the full paper at the Astrophysical Journal<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Read more about this story at news.uci.edu<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n

","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Could the terminator zone on exoplanets be a key area in the search for life beyond our Solar System? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":42929,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"4"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2023\/03\/life-could-take-hold-between-day-and-night-zones-on-distant-planets.jpg",1200,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2023\/03\/life-could-take-hold-between-day-and-night-zones-on-distant-planets-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2023\/03\/life-could-take-hold-between-day-and-night-zones-on-distant-planets-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2023\/03\/life-could-take-hold-between-day-and-night-zones-on-distant-planets-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2023\/03\/life-could-take-hold-between-day-and-night-zones-on-distant-planets-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2023\/03\/life-could-take-hold-between-day-and-night-zones-on-distant-planets.jpg",1200,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2023\/03\/life-could-take-hold-between-day-and-night-zones-on-distant-planets.jpg",1200,800,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Could the terminator zone on exoplanets be a key area in the search for life beyond our Solar System?","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/42928"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}