Other solar systems could have a large number of planets that harbor extraterrestrial life, according to a new study.
Research suggests that other parts of the universe could host numerous planets that are habitable, unlike our solar system, where only one of the worlds has the right conditions for life to thrive.
Scientists looking for life in other parts of the universe regularly search for planets in the “habitable zone”, which are far enough from their star that the water does not evaporate immediately, but close enough that it does not freeze.
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Researchers think that finding planets at that specific distance from their star, which is also known as the Goldilocks zone, is the best hope for finding extraterrestrial life elsewhere in the universe.
The new study was powered by looking at a famous relatively close planetary system, known as Trappist-1, which has at least three planets in its habitable zone.
“This made me wonder about the maximum number of habitable planets a star can have and why our star only has one,” said astrobiologist Stephen Kane of UC Riverside, who led the study published in the Astronomical magazine this week he said. “It didn’t seem fair!”
To understand how many habitable planets a solar system could support, the researchers create a model that allows them to simulate planets of different sizes orbiting their stars. He explained how those planets would interact with each other while orbiting their star, spanning a theoretical time of millions of years.
They discovered that a star like our Sun could support up to six planets, each with liquid water and the conditions to be habitable. Other types of stars could support a total of seven.
If there is more than that, the planets would move too close to each other, disturbing their orbits.
The research also helped clarify why our planet has a relatively insignificant habitable planet, and the conditions that would change that. Part of our problem seems to be that the planets in our solar system move in an oval shape; if their trajectory is more regular and circular, they better minimize contact so they can have more stable orbits.
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Mystic Mountain, a gas and dust pillar three light-years high, filled with gas jets of fledgling stars buried inside, was captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in February 2010.
NASA / ESA / STScI
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The first selfie taken on an alien planet, captured by NASA’s Curiosity Rover in the early days of its mission to explore Mars in 2012
NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS
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Death of a star: This image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray telescope shows Tycho’s supernova, a star in our galaxy, the Milky Way
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Arrokoth, the most distant object ever explored, photographed here on January 1, 2019 by a camera on NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft 4.1 billion miles from Earth.
Getty
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An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory in January 2012. Regions of space like this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust.
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The first image of a black hole, captured by the Event Horizon Telescope, as part of a global collaboration involving NASA, and released on April 10, 2019. The image reveals the black hole at the center of Messier 87, a Massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides about 54 million light years from Earth.
Getty
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Pluto, as shown on NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft when it first flew over the dwarf planet in July 2015
NASA / APL / SwRI
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A coronal mass ejection seen by the Chandra Observatory in 2019. This is the first time that Chandra has detected this phenomenon from a star other than the Sun.
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The dark, narrow, 100-meter-long streaks that ran downhill on the surface of Mars were believed to be evidence of contemporary running water. Since then it has been suggested that they may instead be made of flowing sand
NASA / JPL / University of Arizona
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Morning Aurora: NASA astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of dawn from the International Space Station in October 2015.
NASA / Scott Kelly
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Mystic Mountain, a gas and dust pillar three light-years high, filled with gas jets of fledgling stars buried inside, was captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in February 2010.
NASA / ESA / STScI
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The first selfie taken on an alien planet, captured by NASA’s Curiosity Rover in the early days of its mission to explore Mars in 2012
NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS
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Death of a star: This image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray telescope shows Tycho’s supernova, a star in our galaxy, the Milky Way
Pot
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Arrokoth, the most distant object ever explored, photographed here on January 1, 2019 by a camera on NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft 4.1 billion miles from Earth.
Getty
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An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory in January 2012. Regions of space like this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust.
Pot
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The first image of a black hole, captured by the Event Horizon Telescope, as part of a global collaboration involving NASA, and released on April 10, 2019. The image reveals the black hole at the center of Messier 87, a Massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides about 54 million light years from Earth.
Getty
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Pluto, as shown on NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft when it first flew over the dwarf planet in July 2015
NASA / APL / SwRI
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A coronal mass ejection seen by the Chandra Observatory in 2019. This is the first time that Chandra has detected this phenomenon from a star other than the Sun.
Pot
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The dark, narrow, 100-meter-long streaks that ran downhill on the surface of Mars were believed to be evidence of contemporary running water. Since then it has been suggested that they may instead be made of flowing sand
NASA / JPL / University of Arizona
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Morning Aurora: NASA astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of dawn from the International Space Station in October 2015.
NASA / Scott Kelly
Jupiter might also deserve some of the blame for making our solar system so uninhabitable as well. It is so large, two and a half times the mass of the rest of the planet in the combined solar system, that it monopolizes space and disturbs everything around it, the study suggests.
“It has a great effect on the habitability of our solar system because it is massive and disrupts other orbits,” said Kane.
The research could now help identify other solar systems that might be worth exploring for a potential life. That could inform research from NASA telescopes, such as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Habitable Exoplanet Observatory, which is looking through the universe in an attempt to find which worlds might have the right conditions to be a home.
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