More and more space scientists direct their hypotheses and theories towards the search for extraterrestrial life, which could be common on planets orbiting stars similar in size to the Sun.
New research proposes that nearly half of the stars like the Sun come in pairs, known as binary systems, whose combined energy extends the planets’ habitable region: they heat each other’s worlds as well as their own, which means that they are more likely to be orbited by one that has liquid water.
This was considered by Jes Kristian Jorgensen, from the University of Copenhagen, in Denmark, who in a study published in Nature, noted: “The result is exciting, as the search for extraterrestrial life will be equipped with several new and extremely powerful instruments in the coming years. This will improve understanding of how planets form around different types of stars. Such results can identify places that would be interesting to investigate the existence of life.”
The james webb will soon join the search for extraterrestrial life. At the end of the decade it will be complemented by the Large European Telescope and the extremely powerful SKA.
Jorgensen added: “The SKA will allow direct observation of large organic molecules. The james webb it operates in the infrared, suitable for observing molecules in ice. Finally, we still have ALMA.”
Since the only known planet with life, Earth, orbits the Sun, planetary systems around stars of similar size are obvious targets for astronomers trying to locate extraterrestrial life.
The result of the research also indicates that planetary systems form very differently around binary stars than around individual bodies, such as the Sun. Jorgensen discovered when protoplanetary disks are formed and what their composition of water and complex organic molecules is. . To do this, he used observations in infrared and radio wavelengths carried out by ALMA in Chile, which detected a young binary star about a thousand light years from Earth, called NGC 1333-IRAS2A, which is surrounded by a disk of gas and dust.
The observations can only provide researchers with a snapshot of a point in the binary star system’s evolution. However, the team completed them with computer simulations that go back and forward in time.
Rajika L. Kuruwita, second author of the paper, explained: “The observations allow us to get closer to stars and study how dust and gas move towards the disk. The simulations will tell us what physics are at play and how they have evolved to the snapshot we see and their future evolution.”
The researchers studied the movement of gas and dust, which does not follow a continuous pattern. At certain times, generally during periods of 10 to 100 years in every thousand, the movement becomes very strong.
Presumably, the cyclic pattern can be explained by the duality of the binary star. The two stars surround each other and, at certain intervals, their joint gravity will affect the surrounding disk of gas and dust in a way that causes large amounts of material to fall towards the star.
The astronomers found that the star system described is still too young for planets to have formed. Jorgensen said: “Comets are likely to play a key role in creating possibilities for life to evolve.”
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