Dying stars may hold clues to extraterrestrial life

Last Updated: Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - 13:51

London: Researchers studying Earth-like planets orbiting white dwarf stars have concluded that dying stars could host planets with life-and if such life exists, they might be able to detect it within the next decade.

They found that oxygen could be detected in the atmosphere of a white dwarf`s planet much more easily than for an Earth-like planet orbiting a Sun-like star.






Loeb and his colleague Dan Maoz (Tel Aviv University) estimated that a survey of the 500 closest white dwarfs could spot one or more habitable Earths.


More importantly, we can only study the atmospheres of transiting planets. When the white dwarf`s light shines through the ring of air that surrounds the planet`s silhouetted disk, the atmosphere absorbs some starlight. This leaves chemical fingerprints showing whether that air contains water vapor, or even signatures of life, such as oxygen.

Astronomers are particularly interested in finding oxygen because the oxygen in the Earth`s atmosphere is continuously replenished, through photosynthesis, by plant life. Were all life to cease on Earth, our atmosphere would quickly become devoid of oxygen, which would dissolve in the oceans and oxidize the surface. Thus, the presence of large quantities of oxygen in the atmosphere of a distant planet would signal the likely presence of life there.




Their research will be published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.


First Published: Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - 13:50

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