Life On Earth Is Premature Based On Stars Size, Exoplanets, Scientists Say

First Posted: Aug 03, 2016 06:50 AM EDT
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Life on Earth is believed to have popped up sooner than it should have when compared with what happens on a Universal scale. A theory stating that the universe is huge and that Earth and its denizens are mere specks dust floating in one of its billions of galaxy has been reciprocated, saying that life on Earth came earlier. The theory is described in a work published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.

Lead author and chair of the study from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Avi Loeb discussed that they find that the chance of life grows much higher in the future. A team led by Loeb crunched some numbers that compare the size of stars to how soon life should form on planets surrounding them. The team predicts that the possibility of life development around the more common and smaller red dwarf stars may increase drastically in the future, PopSci reported.

When trying to discover extraterrestrial life, the scientists recommend looking out for stars that have a lower mass which would permit them to live longer, The Monitor Daily reported. A longer period without any disturbances and explosions may allow life to appear.

However, Loeb believes that there is a possibility that we are premature life on earth because we are not living in the future next to a low mass star. Another possibility is that the environment around a low mass star is hazardous to life. Low mass stars, when young, emit strong flares and ultraviolet radiation which can strip the atmosphere from any rocky world into a habitable zone.

Premature life on earth is further explained when the team combined theories and data on stars' sizes and the exoplanets in their habitable zones and calculated the probability as to when life would form. It is predicted that the higher the star's mass, the shorter its lifetime is. This may mean that stars heavier than roughly three times of the sun's mass may expire before life on planets around it has a chance to evolve, thus proving that life on earth existed prior.

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