Why Life May Be Common Throughout the Galaxy (original) (raw)
Surprising Science — March 28, 2012
The super-Earths discovered by NASA’s Kepler mission may be better at supporting life than Earth itself, says the Harvard astronomer who coined the term super-Earth.
Sign up for the Smarter Faster newsletter
A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people
What’s the Latest Development?
NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered thousands of planets outside our solar system which, being larger than Earth but not so large as gas giants, could harbor life. Due to their size, astronomers refer to these planets as super-Earths. Now, the Harvard astronomer Dimitar Sasselov, who coined the term super-Earth, says these planets may be better at harboring life than Earth itself: “Their larger size make its easier for them to retain their atmospheres, and they are more likely to have active plate tectonics, supporting a CO2 cycle that regulates the temperature of the planet’s atmosphere.”
What’s the Big Idea?
Given vastly different chemical compositions, life on other planets may look very different from the life we know on Earth. Sasselov says that the emerging field of synthetic biology will help us understand what different forms of life are possible on other worlds. Not only is Sasselov confident that life exists elsewhere, given the nearly 100 million Earth-sized planets he estimates to be in our galaxy, “he believes our growing knowledge of super-Earths and other exoplanets will help us find ‘friendly harbors’ beyond Earth that one day will allow us to spread life beyond our world.”
Photo credit: shutterstock.com
Sign up for the Smarter Faster newsletter
A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people
Recent controversies bode ill for the effort to detect life on other planets by analyzing the gases in their atmospheres.
The 5th brightest star in our night sky is young, blue, and apparently devoid of massive planets. New JWST observations deepen the mystery.
Mars and Earth were sister planets in many ways, with early similar conditions. Why did Mars die? The leading explanation isn’t universal.
Could life be widespread throughout the cosmos, in the subsurface oceans of ice-covered worlds? NASA’s Europa Clipper mission investigates.
Dinosaurs and other beasts were once thought to be the “undisputed masters” of Venus.
When density perturbations in space cause it to collapse, black holes are created in a range of sizes. Some are extremely small and could pass straight through the Earth.