Stars like our Sun have shifting habitable zones as they evolve. Can outer planets be habitable long enough for life to appear?
As stars like our Sun age, their habitable zones shift, and they can warm planets that were once frozen. Image Credit: ESO/L. Calçada
New research looks at these shifting habitable zones and the planets and moons caught up in them. Its title is “” It’s published in The Astrophysical Journal, and the lead author is Viktor Sparrman, a theoretical astrophysicist from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Uppsala University, Sweden.
This figure from the study shows how the outer planets in our Solar System and their moons transition in and out of the habitable zone as the Sun follows its evolutionary track. Image Credit: Sparrman et al. 2024. The researchers found that some outer worlds have secondary habitable phases that exceed the length of the primary phase. But that’s only if the water doesn’t disappear during the time between the two phases. It’s possible that runaway greenhouse conditions could eliminate enough water to negate habitability in the secondary phase.
“If life originated in shallow water on the surface of Earth, then a larger surface area may increase the probability that life arises, depending upon surface water inventory,” the researchers explain in their paper. “Life originating in shallow waters is supported by UV radiation being an energy source able to supply sufficiently high activation energy for starting the prebiotic reaction processes.
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