Habitable zone Definition and 21 Threads

Imagine a generic terrestrial planet in potentially hab zone around a generic mid-K star. No life as yet, carbon dioxide about 15% of atmosphere and nitrogen 75%, so significant 'greenhouse' effect. Mild tectonic cycle. Cool enough for hydrological cycle: Clouds, rain, rivers, seas, lakes etc...

Well... that: Please, could you please assist me in obtaining a rough estimate of the distance from the Sun at which a planet resembling Venus or a hypothetical Venus-like planet (for the sake of simplicity) would have a habitable-zone surface temperature? A "back-of-the-envelope" educated...

How much more refined are the various variables of the Drake Equation in view of the recent findings by the Kepler Telescope? I imagine fp and ne would surely be better estimates. Is there a study on this anywhere?

I am very interested in Astrobiology and just came across this 7-year old abstract by Seth Shostak (of SETI): http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576510002195 There is a lot of emphasis on searching for biological life outside of our solar system, especially with the...

Let's say there's five Mars/Earth massed planets orbiting a star like the sun between 0.6 AU and 2 AU, what orbital resonance configuration can they be into ensure maximum stability? Would adding gas giants to the system enhance stability?

The interview: John Batchelor Show The scientific paper: https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v544/n7650/full/nature22055.html[/PLAIN] ]Nature and ArXiv The basic facts: Star Name: LHS 1140 Constellation: Cetus the Whale Distance from Sun: 41 light-years Star type: Red dwarf (much...

All of the planets should have individual orbits, and should be between the mass of Mercury and Mars. What can their orbits be in AU's? Is there a way to find out how close they can be without destabilizing each other? If we assume the star is about the same size as Sol.

I mean, currently it seems that scientists are using equilibrium temperature of exoplanets (calculated assuming an Earth-like albedo) to determine whether a planet is habitable or not. But aren't there other more accurate ways to determine surface temperatures of exoplanets? I learned Wien's...

Hi all, So the (hypothetical) question I have is about the range of the Earth's length of orbit (number of days) within the Sun's habitable zone which could sustain human life. I.e. what would the length of the shortest 'habitable' year be, and the longest (in days)? What would our living...

Welcome to my thread. As you have seen from the title, scientists have just discovered a new potentially earth-like planet; it's the closest to us. It's four times the mass of the Earth and it's only 14 light years away. The planet is called Wolf 1060c. Read more about it here. What do you...

So I am working on making a simulation that shows the habitable zone of our solar system from now until our sun reaches the end of it's red giant phase. The sun will die when it is 10 billion years old and will reach the end of the red giant stage at 5 billion years. I know the habitable zone...

I'm a physiologist, not in anyway well-versed in physics beyond what I took as a pre-medical student. Forgive any lapses in proper vocabulary or wording of my inquiries. I have a question about the habitable zone theory. Not so much this...

http://www.nasa.gov/ames/kepler/nasas-kepler-discovers-first-earth-size-planet-in-the-habitable-zone-of-another-star/index.html#.U1BUR1csSuQ Don't know if this is the right section to post this , but I'm a sucker for any news on exoplanets so here goes.

Does anyone know which type of orbit is most likely to result in habitable worlds in a binary star system -- a planet orbiting one of the two stars, or orbiting both of the stars, or are they both very likely/unlikely? Wikipedia quotes a paper that simulated binary stars and found that 50-60%...

What are the inner and outer limits of the habitable zone in distance for the sun?

This article speaks of the Earth leaving our solar systems habitable zone in a billion years or so. I would like to propose a serious discussion of what we, as a species, can do about it. A billion years is a large amount of time, but the scope of the problem is also very large. One...

Hi, I'm an IB math student trying to begin my mathematics project and I just have a really basic question: I'm trying to simulate some orbits within the Circumstellar Habitable Zone (the zone in which a planet can sustain liquid water) and I know that this zone exists from .725 AU to 3.0 AU...

http://fastcache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/8/2011/09/xlarge_hd85512btop.jpg HD 85512 b [/Color] Reference: [PLAIN]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_85512_b"

I mean the smallest, lowest mass, and/or lowest g terrestrial planet that can hold onto and support a favorable atmosphere for potential life, and is in the zone where water can exist as a liquid. I'm really asking: what's the smallest "Earth" possible? I heard that the upper limit for...

I am new and would like some help. I have two questions for a shout out. 1) I need some info to help detirmine the Habitable Zone of a paticular star. I think that JF Kasting propsed some kind of equation but I can't find anymore info on it. I don't really need the equation per say just data...

A recent paper by three Australian astronomers http://arxiv.org./abs/astro-ph/0401024 It has a bearing on Fermi's Question "Where are they" -----quote from the abstract------- "We modeled the evolution of the Milky Way to trace the distribution in space and time of four prerequisites...