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The artist clarifying the view from the seas from “Hycean” exoplanet. | Credit: Amanda Smith, Niko Madosodhan
Hycean Worlds, which is a kind of external planet with deep oceans surrounded by a thick hydrogen envelope, can provide the best chance of JMST to discover Biosignatures, according to a new study.
Those Possible signs of life It is a group of chemicals called metheyl, which is on land It is produced by some bacteria and peripheral algae.
“Unlike the ground similar planet“The weather and the restrictions that are compatible with it make it difficult to discover vital insults, the planets of Hessian offer a more clear signal,” said Eddie REM, a astronomer at the University of California, Riferside. statement.
Now, the existence Hechin planets It is still hypothetical. Their name is Portanto of “hydrogen” and “ocean”, which was first formulated in 2021 by the world of planetary Niko Madosodhan of the University of Cambridge.
Related to: “Hycean” external planets may not be able to support life after all
It is expected that the planets will rotate Red dwarf StarsThe best candidate for the world of Hycean is the K2-18B planet. These external planets, which are classified as “sub–Neptune“The world, orbits in A suitable area for housing From a red dwarf star 124 years of light from Earth in the Liu constellation, the lion.
the Hubble Space Telescope find out Water vapor At Joe K2-18B in 2019, and Discover jwst The presence of carbon dioxide and methane in the planet’s atmosphere, along with the lack of carbon and ammonia – exactly as predicated by the hypothesis of Hessian. There is also temporary evidence that a compound called a dual methayl sulfide, which is produced on the ground only by ocean plankton, is also found in the K2-18B atmosphere, but this evidence is still continuing Controversial.
Now a team of researchers at the University of California, Riferside and Eth Zurich in Switzerland have gone a step forward. They suggest that another family of vehicles called Methyl, which is caused by the microbial ocean life on Earth, can produce a vital signature-which is a chemical signature of biological life-in the atmosphere of Hessi’s world, which can be easily discovered more than the signature of the Earth-like oxygen.
“It is currently an oxygen or is impossible to discover it on an Earth -like planet,” said Michaella Lyong of the University of California, Riferside, the first author of a new paper. “However, Methael’s Halides in Hycean’s worlds provides a unique opportunity to detect current technology.”
Methyl is molecules that include carbon atoms and three hydrogen atoms connected to halogen seed such as bromine, chlorine or fluorine. (Halogins are a group of non -mineral interactive elements.) On Earth, methyl halidate is produced by life, but they are far from abundant in the atmosphere of our planet.
In Hycean’s worlds, however, things can be different. The Leung team suspects that the conditions in such worlds, if they are, will allow methayllaids to accumulate in large quantities in the atmosphere. Moreover, methyl Halides will have strong absorption features in the light of infrared, in the same wavelengths that Jwst Designed to monitor.
“One of the great benefits to search for methayl Hallidate is likely to find it in less than 13 hours with James Web. This is similar or less, to a large extent, to the amount of time of the telescope you need to find gases such as oxygen or methane,” said Lyong said. “Less time with the telescope means it is less expensive.”
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There is a warning for what the Leung team suggests. The first is that we do not yet know whether the worlds of Hycean are already present. They were suggested as a possibility to explain certain properties of some warm planets without the subconscious that have medium densities that mean a thick hydrogen atmosphere and a deep surroundings of liquid water. However, monitoring the surroundings directly down the hydrogen envelope in the world is not currently possible.
The second issue is that we do not know whether these oceans can be residence. The world of Hycean will be hot, and although the harsh conditions below the hydrogen envelope will prevent the ocean from evaporation, it is certain whether the atmosphere is very hot as we know it. However, the positive detection of methyl in the atmosphere of the nominated Hycean world will be a strong indication that life can be there in a deep environment.
If life is present in such a world, it will have to breathe hydrogen, not oxygen.
“These microbes, if we find them, will be anaerobic,” said Shremanman. “They will be adapted to a completely different type of environment, and we cannot really imagine what appears to be, except to say that these gases are a reasonable result of metabolism.”
Anamentary life – that is, life forms without oxygen – are on Earth, so it will not be really strange to life on our planet, even if the environment in which you will live. The worlds that resemble the Earth that revolve around the red dwarves can be in a state of insufficiency, because the red dwarves are small fierce monsters, vulnerable to firing throats of harsh radiation that can strip the Earth’s atmosphere. However, the worlds of Hycean protected with a thick hydrogen atmosphere may be less likely to attack their star.
Therefore, the worlds of Hycean can be the place where life is located in the red dwarf systems, and since the red dwarves make up about three quarters of the stars in us milky way Galaxy, there can be many Hycean worlds suitable for the universe in the universe more than Earth -like worlds.
The research conducted by the Leung team was published on March 11th Astronomical physical magazine messages.
