Moon of Orphan Planets Without Nearby Star Could Be a Starting Point for Life

Scientists are still eagerly looking at how life began in the universe. A new study suggests that life could start from a moon of a planet without a star.

Computer Simulation Demonstrates Expelled Planets With Their Moons

Giulia Roccetti, an astronomer, and her colleagues in the current study did 8,000 computer simulations of a sun-like star with three planets the size of Jupiter. The computer simulations demonstrated that planets expelled from their solar system frequently sail into space with their moons attached.

The scientists then performed simulations of those moons, which they assumed to be Earth-sized, zooming around their planets following the orbits they ultimately acquired during the ejection, according to Science News.

To determine whether gravitational heating took place and whether it persisted long enough for life to possibly have originated there was the main objective. Yet, the earliest signs of life on Earth date to roughly 1 billion years after the planet formed, suggesting that it may have only taken a few hundred million years for Earth to become habitable.

The scientists conducted their calculations using three different scenarios because an environment is essential for heat retention. The scientists discovered that for moons with atmospheres of the same pressure as Earth's, the window of potential habitability persisted for no more than 50 million years. But, if the atmospheric pressure is ten times that of Earth, it can endure for around 300 million years, and at pressures ten times higher, it can last for about 1.6 billion years. Although the pressure may seem excessive, Venus, a planet of a similar size, has similar pressure levels.

Yet, warmth and water might not be sufficient to encourage the emergence of living things. Astrophysicist Alex Teachey of the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics in Taipei, Taiwan, believes that the moons of planets that are free to move around "will not be the most ideal places for life to originate."

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Moons of Orphaned Planets Could Spark Life

According to Teachey, an expert in planetary moons, stars are likely to be much better energy sources for life because of their enormous power output and durability. Even though the conditions are right for life to exist, it remains to be seen whether life can even begin in places like Europa or Enceladus because they lack factors like solar radiation, which can speed up the process of mutation for evolution.

Although she is not an astrobiologist, Roccetti believes that moons of orphan planets offer a few significant benefits. They will have a small amount of water- not too much- which many astrobiologists believe is a better place for life to begin versus an ocean world. Also, since there isn't a star nearby, there aren't any solar flares, which frequently destroy a planet's atmosphere despite its potential.

She asserts that it is crucial to look at all of the environments in our universe because they are all highly distinct from the ones we have on Earth.

Rocetti and her colleague reported their findings in the International Journal of Astrobiology on March 20 and again on March 23 at the PLANET-ESLAB 2023 Symposium.