Astronomers have long been studying our vast Universe in the hope of discovering alien civilizations. But in order to
“All our data suggests that waterhas been part of the building blocks of the Earth from the very beginning. And since the water molecule is common, there is a reasonable chance that this applies to all planets in the Milky Way. The decisive point for determining the presence of liquid is the distance from the planet to the star.”
Professor Anders Johansen from the Center for Star and Planetary Education
Using a computer model, the scientists calculatedhow quickly planets are formed and from what building blocks. The study reveals that they were millimeter-sized dust particles of ice and carbon known to orbit all of the young stars in the Milky Way, which were formed 4.5 billion years ago by the formation of what would later become Earth.
Until the moment when the Earth grew to 1% of itsthe current mass, our planet grew by capturing the mass of pebbles filled with ice and carbon. Then the Earth grew faster and faster until, five million years later, it became as large as it is now. Along the way, surface temperatures rose sharply, causing the ice in the pebbles to evaporate en route to the surface, so today only 0.1% of the planet is water, although 70% of the Earth's surface is covered with water. A research team in Lund came up with a theory a decade ago, which is now supported by new research.
A theory called "pebble build-up"is that the planets are formed from pebbles that stick together, and that the planets then get bigger and bigger. The water molecule H2O is found throughout our galaxy, and that theory thus opens up the possibility that other planets could have formed in the same way as Earth, Mars, and Venus.
All planets in the Milky Way can be formedfrom the same building blocks. This means that planets with the same amount of water and carbon as Earth are often found around other stars in our galaxy, provided the temperature is right. If the planets in our galaxy had the same building blocks and the same temperature conditions as Earth, there would also be a good chance they could have roughly the same amount of water and continents as our planet.
In the scientists' model, all planets get the samethe amount of water, and this suggests that other planets can have not only the same amount of water and oceans, but also the same number of continents as on Earth. This provides good opportunities for the emergence of life. If, on the other hand, the amount of water on the planets were random, the planets might look completely different. Some planets will be too dry for life to develop, while others will be completely covered in water.
Now researchers are waiting for the appearance of spacenext-generation telescopes that will provide much better opportunities for observing exoplanets orbiting a star other than the Sun. The new telescopes are powerful. They use spectroscopy, which means that by observing what type of light is blocked from the orbit of planets around their star, you can see how much water vapor there is. This can tell scientists about the number of oceans on the planet.
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