Even seven rocky planets in one star s habitable zone? Possible

Recent research indicates that up to seven Earth-like rocky planets may orbit in the habitats of stars without any gas giants.

This is the conclusion at least by Stephen Kane, an astrobiologist at UC Riverside. He has just published the results of his research in the Astronomical Journal.

The ecosphere is the most interesting place surrounded by a star

The search for life in outer space is almost always focused on the so-called ecosphere, that is, the area around the star where liquid water could exist on the surface of a rocky planet. For life as we know it from the surface of the Earth, liquid water is one of the key factors.

Kane has been studying the Trappist-1 planetary system for some time, in which there are as many as three Earth-like planets in the star's habitable zone.

I started to wonder how many maximum such planets could be in a planetary system and why there is only one in ours

Kane begins.

Together with his team, the astrobiologist created models in which he simulated planetary systems of planets of different sizes orbiting different stars. The algorithms included in the models took into account the mutual gravitational interactions and made it possible to test the interactions between planets over the course of many millions of years.

Comparison of the sizes of the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system with the solar system

Researchers have found that up to seven planets can exist around some stars in the habitable zone. Stars like the Sun can potentially contain up to six planets with liquid water.

Above seven, the planets are too close to each other and destabilize each other's orbits

Says Kane.

So why is there only one planet of this type in the solar system when there could be more? Well, it is best when the planets move in circular and not elliptical orbits, thanks to which the orbits are much more stable.

Kane also suspects that Jupiter, whose mass is more than twice the mass of all the other planets in the solar system combined, has significantly impeded the formation of other planets in the sun's habitable zone.

So far, we only know a few stars with more than one planet orbiting in the habitable zone. Kane plans to focus on finding more stars of this type. They will be a prime target for observatories like the Habitable Exoplanet Observatory that will try to take direct pictures of them.

As part of their research, Kane's team has already identified one such star. This is beta CVn, a star 27 light-years from Earth. Since no gas giant is orbited around the star, it will be one of the stars in which scientists will search for rocky planets.

Research of this type not only opens up new ways of searching for life in outer space, but also provides a lot of information about the forces that can change our life on Earth.

While we know that Earth has been friendly to life for much of its history, many unanswered questions remain about how such favorable conditions have changed over time. By measuring the properties of exoplanets whose evolutionary paths may have been similar to ours, we can learn a lot about both the past and the future of Earth, and thus what we must do to keep it living friendly to life.

- he sums up.



Even seven rocky planets in the habitable of one star? Possible

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