Habitability of Super-Earth Planets around Other Suns: Models including Red Giant Branch Evolution
| Autor: | von Bloh, W., Cuntz, M., Schroeder, K. -P., Bounama, C., Franck, S. |
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| Rok vydání: | 2008 |
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| Druh dokumentu: | Working Paper |
| DOI: | 10.1089/ast.2008.0285 |
| Popis: | The unexpected diversity of exoplanets includes a growing number of super- Earth planets, i.e., exoplanets with masses of up to several Earth masses and a similar chemical and mineralogical composition as Earth. We present a thermal evolution model for a 10 Earth mass planet orbiting a star like the Sun. Our model is based on the integrated system approach, which describes the photosynthetic biomass production taking into account a variety of climatological, biogeochemical, and geodynamical processes. This allows us to identify a so-called photosynthesis-sustaining habitable zone (pHZ) determined by the limits of biological productivity on the planetary surface. Our model considers the solar evolution during the main-sequence stage and along the Red Giant Branch as described by the most recent solar model. We obtain a large set of solutions consistent with the principal possibility of life. The highest likelihood of habitability is found for "water worlds". Only mass-rich water worlds are able to realize pHZ-type habitability beyond the stellar main-sequence on the Red Giant Branch. Comment: 40 pages, 6 figures; Astrobiology (in press) |
| Databáze: | arXiv |
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