Friday, June 27, 2014

10 Requirements Of A Habitable Planet

Original source :http://www.smashinglists.com
Posted : February 2011
Author : the admin

Scientists have recently discovered around 140 Earth-like planets using the latest Kepler telescope. Even more exciting than that is the fact that scientists now claim that there could be  many more that harbor the exact conditions necessary for life. But what criteria should be met for a planet to qualify the title of earth-like or more probably habitable? Lets see.

10. Habitable Goldilocks Neighborhood
The habitable zone (HZ) is the distance from a star where an Earth-like planet can maintain liquid water on its surface and Earth-like life. The habitable zone is the intersection of two regions that must both be favorable to life; one within a planetary system, and the other within a galaxy. The habitable zone is not to be confused with the planetary habitability. While planetary habitability deals solely with the planetary conditions required to maintain carbon-based life, the habitable zone deals with the stellar conditions required to maintain carbon-based life, and these two factors are not meant to be interchanged. A ” Goldilocks planet ” is a planet that falls within a star’s habitable zone, and the name is often specifically used for planets close to the size of Earth. The name comes from the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, in which a little girl chooses from sets of three items, ignoring the ones that are too extreme (large or small, hot or cold, etc.), and settling on the one in the middle, which is “just right”. Likewise, a planet following this Goldilocks Principle is one that is neither too close nor too far from a star to rule out liquid water on its surface and thus life (as humans understand it) on the planet. However, planets within a habitable zone that are unlikely to host life (e.g., gas giants) may also be called Goldilocks planets. The best example of a Goldilocks planet is the Earth itself. Along with the characteristics of planets and their star systems, the wider galactic environment may also impact habitability. Scientists considered the possibility that particular areas of galaxies are better suited to life than others:
* It is not in a globular cluster where immense star densities are inimical to life, given excessive radiation and gravitational disturbance.
* It is not near an active gamma ray source.
* It is not near the galactic center where once again star densities increase the likelihood of ionizing radiation. A supermassive black hole is also believed to lie at the middle of the galaxy which might prove a danger to any nearby bodies.

9. Less Alterations in Luminosity of its Star
Changes in luminosity are common to all stars, but the severity of such fluctuations covers a broad range. Most stars are relatively stable, but a significant minority of variable stars often experience sudden and intense increases in luminosity and consequently the amount of energy radiated toward bodies in orbit. These are considered poor candidates for hosting life-bearing planets as their unpredictability and energy output changes would negatively impact organisms. Particularly, living things adapted to a specific temperature range would probably be unable to survive too great a temperature deviation. Further, upswings in luminosity are generally accompanied by massive doses of gamma ray and X-ray radiation which might prove lethal. Atmospheres do mitigate such effects, but atmosphere retention might not occur on planets orbiting variables, because the high-frequency energy buffeting these bodies would continually strip them of their protective covering.

8. High Metallicity of its Star
In astronomy and physical cosmology, the metallicity of an object is the proportion of its matter made up of chemical elements other than hydrogen and helium. Since stars, which comprise most of the visible matter in the universe, are composed mostly of hydrogen and helium, astronomers use for convenience the blanket term “metal” to describe all other elements collectively. A low amount of metal significantly decreases the probability that planets will have formed around that star. Thus, any planets that did form around a metal-poor star would probably be low in mass, and thus unfavorable for life.

7. Good Jupiters
“Good Jupiters” are gas giant planets, like the solar system’s Jupiter, that orbit their stars in circular orbits far enough away from the habitable zone to not disturb it but close enough to “protect” terrestrial planets in closer orbit in two critical ways. First, they help to stabilize the orbits, and thereby the climates, of the inner planets. Second, they keep the inner solar system relatively free of comets and asteroids that could cause devastating impacts. Jupiter orbits the Sun at about five times the distance between the Earth and the Sun. This is the rough distance we should expect to find good Jupiters elsewhere. Jupiter’s “caretaker” role was dramatically illustrated in 1994 when Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacted the giant; had Jovian gravity not captured the comet, it may well have entered the inner solar system.

6. More Mass
Low-mass planets are poor candidates for life for two reasons. First, their lesser gravity makes atmosphere retention difficult. Constituent molecules are more likely to reach escape velocity and be lost to space when buffeted by solar wind or stirred by collision. Secondly, smaller planets have smaller diameters and thus higher surface-to-volume ratios than their larger cousins. Such bodies tend to lose the energy left over from their formation quickly and end up geologically dead, lacking the volcanoes, earthquakes and tectonic activity which supply the surface with life-sustaining material and the atmosphere with temperature moderators like carbon dioxide. Plate tectonics appear particularly crucial, at least on Earth: not only does the process recycle important chemicals and minerals, it also fosters bio-diversity through continent creation and increased environmental complexity and helps create the convective cells necessary to generate Earth’s magnetic field. “Low mass” is partly a relative label; the Earth is considered low mass when compared to the Solar System’s gas giants, but it is the largest, by diameter and mass, and densest of all terrestrial bodies. It is large enough to retain an atmosphere through gravity alone and large enough that its molten core remains a heat engine, driving the diverse geology of the surface. Finally, a larger planet is likely to have a large iron core. This allows for a magnetic field to protect the planet from stellar wind and cosmic radiation, which otherwise would tend to strip away planetary atmosphere and to bombard living things with ionized particles.

5. Less Eccentric Orbit
The orbital eccentricity of an astronomical body is the amount by which its orbit deviates from a perfect circle. As with other criteria, stability is the critical consideration in determining the effect of orbital and rotational characteristics on planetary habitability. Orbital eccentricity is the difference between a planet’s farthest and closest approach to its parent star divided by the sum of said distances. It is a ratio describing the shape of the elliptical orbit. The greater the eccentricity the greater the temperature fluctuation on a planet’s surface. Although they are adaptive, living organisms can only stand so much variation, particularly if the fluctuations overlap both the freezing point and boiling point of the planet’s main biotic solvent (e.g., water on Earth). If, for example, Earth’s oceans were alternately boiling and freezing solid, it is difficult to imagine life as we know it having evolved. The more complex the organism, the greater the temperature sensitivity. The Earth’s orbit is almost wholly circular, with an eccentricity of less than 0.02; other planets in our solar system (with the exception of Mercury) have eccentricities that are similarly benign.

4. Axial Tilt
A planet’s movement around its rotational axis must also meet certain criteria if life is to have the opportunity to evolve. A first assumption is that the planet should have moderate seasons. If there is little or no axial tilt (or obliquity) relative to the perpendicular of the ecliptic, seasons will not occur and a main stimulant to biospheric dynamism will disappear. The planet would also be colder than it would be with a significant tilt: when the greatest intensity of radiation is always within a few degrees of the equator, warm weather cannot move poleward and a planet’s climate becomes dominated by colder polar weather systems. If a planet is radically tilted, meanwhile, seasons will be extreme and make it more difficult for a biosphere to achieve homeostasis.

3. Biomass
It is generally assumed that any extraterrestrial life that might exist will be based on the same fundamental biochemistry as found on Earth, as the four elements most vital for life, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, are also the most common chemically reactive elements in the universe. Indeed, simple biogenic compounds, such as amino acids, have been found in meteorites and in the interstellar medium. These four elements together comprise over 96% of Earth’s collective biomass. Carbon has an unparalleled ability to bond with itself and to form a massive array of intricate and varied structures, making it an ideal material for the complex mechanisms that form living cells. Hydrogen and oxygen, in the form of water, compose the solvent in which biological processes take place and in which the first reactions occurred that led to life’s emergence. The energy released in the formation of powerful covalent bonds between carbon and oxygen, available by oxidizing organic compounds, is the fuel of all complex life-forms. These four elements together make up amino acids, which in turn are the building blocks of proteins, the substance of living tissue. In addition, neither sulfur, required for the building of proteins, nor phosphorus, needed for the formation of DNA, RNA, and the adenosine phosphates essential to metabolism, are rare. Thus, while there is reason to suspect that the four “life elements” ought to be readily available elsewhere, a habitable system probably also requires a supply of long-term orbiting bodies to seed inner planets. Without comets there is a possibility that life as we know it would not exist on Earth.


2. Microenvironment
One important qualification to habitability criteria is that only a tiny portion of a planet is required to support life. The discovery of life in extreme conditions has complicated definitions of habitability, but also generated much excitement amongst researchers in greatly broadening the known range of conditions under which life can persist. For example, a planet that might otherwise be unable to support an atmosphere given the solar conditions in its vicinity, might be able to do so within a deep shadowed rift or volcanic cave. Similarly, craterous terrain might offer a refuge for primitive life.


1. Different Metabolism Mechanism
While most investigations of extraterrestrial life start with the assumption that advanced life-forms must have similar requirements for life as on Earth, the hypothesis of other types of biochemistry suggests the possibility of lifeforms evolving around a different metabolic mechanism. In Evolving the Alien, biologist Jack Cohen and mathematician Ian Stewart argue astrobiology, based on the Rare Earth hypothesis, is restrictive and unimaginative. They suggest that Earth-like planets may be very rare, but non-carbon-based complex life could possibly emerge in other environments. The most frequently mentioned alternative to carbon is silicon-based life, while ammonia is sometimes suggested as an alternative solvent to water.

~Blog Admin~

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