Researchers have learned to quickly identify potentially habitable exoplanets

Scientists noted that usually exoplanets are searched only in the “Goldilocks zone” (habitable zone). This is what

the distance at which the planet should befrom its star, to be “not too hot and not too cold.” In this zone, 5,000 exoplanet candidates have already been found. But none of them are like Earth - they do not have the required amount of water.

Now researcher Masahiro Ikoma fromThe National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) modeled the formation of planets around red dwarfs and found that a small but noticeable percentage of these planets likely contain water, making them similar to Earth. A model called JWST can be applied to any part of space.

Too much water in the atmosphereplanets can lead to a greenhouse effect, when surface temperatures get too high, no matter how far the planet is from its parent star. It also results in "water worlds" that have no land, eliminating one of the important evolutionary epochs that life on Earth has gone through. At the same time, on planets where there is too little water, there is no essential element of life and they may turn out to be similar to Mars, which has lost most of its liquid under the influence of the solar wind.

Scientists have noted that only a few percentplanets forming in the habitable zone will have enough water to potentially harbor life. But this will save the scientific community from studying each object separately and save tens of thousands of hours.

If these estimates are correct, then planet hunters like TESS and PLATO may be able to find some before the end of the decade. And when they are found, JWST will be able to determine if they have water in the atmosphere.

So far, planetary formation models have indicatedthat most planets form either with too much or too little water. This was especially noticeable near the most common type of star in the galaxy, red dwarfs.

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