Goldilocks Moons When we think of where else life might exist in the universe, we tend to focuson planets. But on a grander cosmic scale, moons could prove the more common life-friendly abode. A single gas giant planet in the not-too-warm, not-too-cold habitable zone around its star — where Earth and Mars correspondingly reside — could host several livable moons. At this early point in our hunt for exoplanets, most of the worlds we have found in the habitable zone are giants, not Earths. Its possible that the first inhabited place we discover outside our Solar System will be a moon. It is this sort of consideration that inspires René Heller, a postdoctoral fellow in astronomy at McMaster University, in Ontario, Canada. He studies how exomoons could form, what they might be like and how we might detect them with current or future astronomical instruments. A major part of his work deals with gauging the habitability of exomoons, which is a bit trickier than planets because moons orbit another body besides their star. space/25185-alien-moons-habitability.html
Posted on: Sun, 23 Mar 2014 18:42:41 +0000
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