More planets than previously believed may be capable of hosting alien life, according to a new scientific study that challenges the strictly defined criteria used to search for habitable worlds. For decades, scientists have focused their search on the so-called "Goldilocks zone"—the orbital region around a star where temperatures are neither too high nor too low for liquid water to exist on a planetary surface.
This long-standing hypothesis is based on the conviction that liquid water is an essential prerequisite for life. However, many of the exoplanetary systems discovered to date do not meet these narrow criteria, leading many researchers to conclude that they are likely inhospitable. The new research, however, suggests that these search parameters may be far too restrictive.
According to the study, planets that are tidally locked—meaning they always show the same face to their star, leaving one side in permanent daylight and the other in eternal darkness—could still maintain liquid water. Heat from the sunlit side could be redistributed through the atmosphere, keeping temperatures on the dark side above the freezing point.
Researchers utilized climate models to simulate these unique conditions, concluding that such worlds may contain significantly more habitable areas than previously estimated. This suggests that certain planets recently observed by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which appear to possess water vapor and volatile gases, might actually fall within a safe thermal range to sustain water on their surfaces.
The study goes even further, arguing that planets once considered too cold for life could still be habitable. In these cases, liquid water may exist trapped between layers of thick ice, creating subglacial environments that are potentially friendly to life.
These findings were published under the title "Exoplanets beyond the Conservative Habitable Zone. I. Habitability" in The Astrophysical Journal. The research, led by astrophysicist Amri Wandel, opens new horizons in the search for life beyond our Solar System.
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