The chances that there might be more planets — and systems — like ours (watery and thickly covered in an oxygen bearing atmosphere — and warm, but not too hot) just increased a bit. NASA’s Chandra Observatory has sent back data, indicating that young stars, about the size of our Sun “cool, and calm down” — on the X-ray spectrum — more rapidly than earlier thought.
These young stars become more benign, after about 250 million years, not into the billions of years as previously surmised. Thus, this now-widened time-window, for when calm, rocky planets like ours, in the Goldilocks Zone, might develop and retain warm oxygen rich atmospheres, and host water oceans… and thus see life arise… means many more systems might presently host… life. The chances are pretty darn good there is some life out there, somewhere — but this slightly increases those already favorable odds. Here’s that, from NASA | Goddard:
…Scientists have found that young stellar cousins of our Sun are calming down and dimming more quickly in their X-ray output than previously thought, according to a new study using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. A paper describing the results published Monday in The Astrophysical Journal.
Unlike in the new movie “Project Hail Mary,” this quieting of young stars is a benefit for the prospects for life on orbiting planets around these stars — not a threat.
Astronomers used Chandra and other telescopes to monitor how powerful radiation from young stars — often in the form of dangerous X-rays — can pummel planets surrounding them. They did not know, however, how long this high-energy barrage continued.
This latest study looked at eight clusters of stars between the ages of 45 million and 750 million years old. The researchers found that Sun-like stars in these clusters unleashed only about a quarter to a third of the X-rays they expected. . . .
The researchers found that stars with about the same mass as the Sun quieted down relatively rapidly — after a few hundred million years — while ones with less mass kept up their high levels of X-ray emission for longer. Combined with a decrease in the energy of the X-rays and the disappearance of energetic particles, the Sun-sized stars are apparently better suited to host planets with robust atmospheres and possibly blossoming life than previously thought….
Of course, it may still be that “intelligent” life only lasts on these worlds for a few millenia, before destroying themselves with nukes, or destroying their host planets’ environments — to render them… barren, again.
That in turn may mean that we may never find our window is open at the same time, and within a distance that we might detect their presence. But the odds are high, that somewhere — at some time out there… things like us have existed, or do now exist — or will soon… exist.
Will we prove smart enough to avoid destroying ourselves long enough to meet them? Presently, I have my doubts. But onward, resolutely, just the same.
नमस्ते
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