 |
| Exomoon Sunsets (NASA artistry) |
Instead of people singing “Moon Over Miami,” aliens may one day
be singing (or whatever) “Exomoon Over Exoplanet.”
According to Andrew Norton of The Open University, there
are some good scientific reasons to believe that the number of exomoons (moons that orbit exoplanets) exceed even the number of exoplanets (planets that orbit stars other than our sun).
Therefore, the possibility of finding life on exomoons may be even greater than the possibility of finding life on exoplanets.
Theoretical exomoons have been thus far categorized in these four ways: habitable (with more
than 10% of the surface “at a temperature between the freezing and boiling points of water”), hot (with “average
temperatures above 100 degrees Celsius at all times”), snowball (“permanently
frozen”), and transient
(generally habitable, but “the amount of habitable surface area varies widely with time”).
Resources
http://www.space.com/25645-move-over-exoplanets-exomoons-may-harbour-life-too.html
Copyright April 26, 2014 by Linda Van Slyke All Rights Reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment