habitable exoplanets
Plants Would Still Grow Well Under Alien Skies
Photosynthesis changed Earth in powerful ways. When photosynthetic organisms appeared, it led to the Great Oxygenation Event. That allowed multicellular…
Elliptical Orbits Could be Essential to the Habitability of Rocky Planets
A seismic shift occurred in astronomy during the Scientific Revolution, beginning with 16th-century polymath Copernicus and his proposal that the…
If Earth is Average, We Should Find Extraterrestrial Life Within 60 Light-Years
A new study estimates that there could be 11,000 habitable planets within 100 parsecs of our Sun, the nearest being…
Machine Learning Will be one of the Best Ways to Identify Habitable Exoplanets
A new study has shown how machine learning will aid next-generation telescopes in the search for water on exoplanets.
A New Technique for “Seeing” Exoplanet Surfaces Based on the Content of their Atmospheres
A new study takes a look at how the presence of a surface can affect an exoplanets atmosphere, giving astrobiologists…
What Role do Radioactive Elements Play in a Planet’s Habitability?
According to new study by a team from UC Santa Cruz, the right amount of radioactive elements could also be…
Some Stars Could Support as Many as 7 Habitable Planets
A new study by a team of astronomers and planetary scientists calculate that some stars could have as many as…
Do the TRAPPIST-1 Planets Have Atmospheres?
A new study takes a hard look at the TRAPPIST-1 system to determine if its seven exoplanets could have viable…