As part of new research on the search for habitable exoplanets, scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) have assembled a recipe for other Earths. Researchers say the basic formula would produce Earth-like exoplanets potentially capable of hosting life.
As observatory technologies (both Earth-bound and space-based) continue to get more sophisticated and powerful, discovering exoplanets has become easier. New planets are now discovered with great frequency. But the primary goal of finding other distant planets like our own remains. Only now, there's more data to sort through.
To simplify the search, researchers have developed a more accurate blueprint for what makes up an Earth-like exoplanet -- one suitable enough for alien life.
Researchers presented their recipe as part of a presentation on the newly tested HARPS-North instrument during this week's annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society. The HARPS -- which stands for High-Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher -- sits on a telescope in the Canary Islands and is able to accurately measure the masses of small, Earth-sized alien worlds.
Measuring the mass and densities of exoplanets is key to understanding the chemical compositions of alien planets and thus determining their similarity to Earth -- using the updated recipe.
"Our solar system is not as unique as we might have thought," explained lead researcher Courtney Dressing of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). "It looks like rocky exoplanets use the same basic ingredients."
Dressing and her colleagues say the instrument and their new and improved understanding of rocky exoplanet formation should help astronomers hone in on the alien worlds most likely to replicate Earth's life-nurturing conditions.
"To find a truly Earth-like world, we should focus on planets less than 1.6 times the size of Earth, because those are the rocky worlds," said Dressing.
As detailed in their latest paper on the subject -- set to be published in The Astrophysical Journal -- the recipe for an Earth-like planet is as follows:
i:Ingredients:
1 cup magnesium
1 cup silicon
2 cups iron
2 cups oxygen
1/2 teaspoon aluminum
1/2 teaspoon nickel
1/2 teaspoon calcium
1/4 teaspoon sulfur
dash of water delivered by asteroids
Instructions: Blend well in a large bowl, shape into a round ball with your hands and place it neatly in a habitable zone area around a young star. Do not over mix. Heat until mixture becomes a white hot glowing ball. Bake for a few million years. Cool until color changes from white to yellow to red and a golden-brown crust forms. It should not give off light anymore. Season with a dash of water and organic compounds. It will shrink a bit as steam escapes and clouds and oceans form. Stand back and wait a few more million years to see what happens. If you are lucky, a thin frosting of life may appear on the surface of your new world.