Dusty Worlds May be Home to Life
Exoplanets with a lot of dust in their atmosphere may be home to life. But, this same dust could block us from seeing it.
Dusty worlds like the desert planet Arrakis from Dune may be common throughout the galaxy. Some of these worlds, harboring large quantities of dust in their atmospheres, may be likely places to find life, a new study concludes. However, these same dusty conditions also make finding evidence of life on these worlds more challenging for astronomers.
Researchers modeled three forms of exoplanets, each with varying amounts of dust in their atmosphere. The study found that dusty atmospheric conditions could insulate a planet, increasing the range of distances at which life could form, making the development of life more likely on these planets, if the planet is close enough to its parent star.
Planets which orbit close to cool, red stars (known as red dwarfs or M-dwarfs) are likely to be tidally-locked to their stars — a single face of these worlds would permanently face the star just as one side of the moon always faces Earth. These conditions would result in half the world being kept in constant daylight while the other half experiences perpetual night.
Recent studies suggest these tidally-locked worlds are the most common configuration of habitable worlds around these cool, diminutive stars.
