Planets More Hospitable To Life Than Earth May Already Have Been Discovered

 

Image: NASA Ames/SETI Institute/JPL-Caltech.

Joel Kontinen

 

  

Astronomers have discovered more than 4,000 exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system, so far. even the planet that most resembled the Earth, is not habitable,

For example, planet KELT-9b is so hot that its atmosphere is constantly melting. The darkest known planet, TrES-2b, has an atmospheric temperature of 980 degrees Celsius or1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. On the other end of the inhospitable spectrum is GJ 433 d, whose discoverers described it as the coldest Neptune-like planet ever discovered. 

However, according to evolutionists, at least two dozen planets outside the solar system might be better for life than  Earth,

These planets are just a little older, a little wetter, a little warmer and a little larger than Earth is, researchers wrote Sept. 18 in the journal Astrobiology. All of these factors could mean that some of these planets are the best places to search for extraterrestrial life. 

"We have to focus on certain planets that have the most promising conditions for complex life. However, we have to be careful to not get stuck looking for a second Earth because there could be planets that might be more suitable for life than ours," University of Washington astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch said .

 A better version of Earth might also have a slightly larger moon, or a moon slightly closer to the planet, which would help stabilize its orbit and prevent life-disrupting wobbles, the researchers wrote. 

 The researchers came up with a set of parameters to use to meet all these criteria. According to them,  the perfect superhabitable planet would be in orbit around a K dwarf star, which is a relatively small star star that’s slightly cooler than our sun (which is considered a yellow dwarf); about 5 billion to 8 billion years old; about 10% larger than Earth; about 9 F (5 C) warmer than Earth, on average; moist with an atmosphere that is 25% to 30% oxygen, with scattered land and water. The perfect planet would also have plate tectonics or a similar geological process in order to recycle minerals and nutrients through the crust and to create diverse habitats and topography, and would have a moon between 1% and 10% of its size orbiting it at a moderate distance.

It's not possible to evaluate distant exoplanets on all these criteria. There is no way to calculate an exoplanet's landmass area, for example, much less how it's distributed. 

So, this research did not come up with “more hospitable than Earth” criteria. Even if a super Earth was found, life has to be planted there – by God.

Source:

Pappas, Stephanie, 2020. Planets more hospitable to life than Earth may already have been discovered. Live Science  10 0ctober.