New research finds 24 ‘super-habitable’ alien worlds

The longer lifespan means that biological matter has more time to form and grow on planets that occupy that star’s ‘habitable zone’ (the orbital strip that’s ‘not too hot’ and ‘not too cold’) and accrue biodiversity – an exercise that took the Earth 3.5 billion years to complete.

In a surprisingly positive twist, orange dwarfs are about 50% more common in the Milky Way than yellow dwarfs.

The size of a planet can also influence how well it may support life. A heavier planet would have a stronger gravitational pull, allowing its atmosphere to remain stable for longer. A planet 10% wider than Earth would have much more habitable land. And a planet with 1.5 times Earth’s mass would be expected to retain heat more effectively, keeping its core molten and magnetic fields active.

For the full list of features scientists were after in the search for super-habitability, click here.

Suffice to say, researchers searching for these exceptional worlds weren’t able to find any that satisfied all the criteria, mostly due to observational limitations, but one planet did meet at least two.

KOI 5715.01 is a planet about 5.5 billion years old and 1.8 to 2.4 times Earth’s diameter orbiting an orange dwarf about 2,965 light-years away. It might have an average surface temperature about 2.4 degrees C (4.3 degrees F) cooler than Earth, but if it has more greenhouse gases than Earth to trap heat, it might be super-habitable according to the report.

There were 24 potentially super-habitable worlds identified by researchers in all. Schulze-Makuch’s favorite potentially super-habitable world from these 24 was KOI 5554.01, a world about 6.5 billion years old 0.72 to 1.29 times Earth’s diameter orbiting a yellow dwarf about 700 light-years from Earth.

‘I really liked the average surface temperature — about 27 degrees C [80 degrees F],’ they said. ‘And it’s probably about Earth’s size, and a little bit older than Earth.’

This study will likely act as a guiding principle for the first endeavours of three very powerful space-based telescopes that will be operational in the next few years, giving astronomers the opportunity to study far-off exoplanets for the first time. The most famous is NASA’s James Web Space Telescope, which is due to launch on October 31, 2021, while the European Space Agency’s PLATO space telescope (2026) and NASA’s LUVIOR space observatory (due to launch in the 2030s) are also arriving soon.

Hopefully, with the new ability to properly study these supposed super-habitable planets the true extent of their potential to be humanity’s second home will become clear.