It is possible that Earth’s “double” exoplanets, with proportions of land and oceans similar to those of our planet, are extremely rare. The conclusion comes from a new study led by Tilman Spoon and Dennis Hoeing of the Space Science and Planetary Research Institute. They showed that the worlds are very similar to Earth – with about 30% of their surface covered continental block Exposed – may represent only 1% of the rocky exoplanets that lie in the habitable zone of their stars.
The pair used models to understand the relationship between water in the planet’s mantle and the “recycling” of continental mass through plate tectonics. Overall, the results indicated that the ratio observed on land, from land to sea, is perfectly balanced, but this could easily change to more water or more land mass if the interior of the world in question reached a temperature similar to that of Earth. . Earth’s mantle1410 degrees Celsius.
Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Canaltech
Models suggest that ocean-dominated planets less than 10% of the Earth’s surface will be warm and humid with a tropical climate. In the case of land-dominated planets, where oceans cover less than 30% of their surface, the climate will be cooler and drier, with Wonderful deserts and glaciers. “While all formed planets can be considered habitable, their animals and plants can be very different,” Spoon added.
He shows that, since we’re so used to the balance between land and ocean regions here on Earth, it can be easy to conclude that an Earth-like planet in another star system would be very similar to ours. “The results of our models indicate that this is likely not the case,” he noted.
The article containing the results of the study was published on the website of the Europlanet Science 2022 conference.
Source: Europlanet Society (1And the two)
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