Life may be possible in clouds of failed stars: researchers

06 December 2016 - 14:04 By Bruce Gorton
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A brown dwarf.
A brown dwarf.
Image: Image by: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Between the heaviest planets and the lightest stars there exists a class of celestial bodies known as brown dwarfs – and‚ according to new research, these bodies may be capable of holding life.

According to the research‚ which is set to be published in The Astrophysical Journal‚ the researchers studied the coolest known brown dwarf‚ W0855-0714‚ and found that its clouds had an atmospheric habitable zone (AHZ) - or an area that could theoretically support Earth-centric lifeforms.

This brown dwarf was one of the first extra-solar objects with evidence of water clouds‚ according to an earlier study‚ and the new study hints at those clouds being of a reasonable temperature for life.

There are microbes on earth that survive by drifting in the winds of our atmosphere - they could possibly survive in these alien conditions.

Life in this sort of atmosphere would have to float on convective updrafts to avoid falling towards the hot surface of the brown dwarf.

Stronger updrafts would support larger creatures.

“For a purely radiative environment we found that the successful organisms will have a mass that is 10 times smaller than terrestrial microbes‚ thereby putting some dynamical constraints on the dimensions of life that the AHZ can support‚” the researchers said.

According to the researchers‚ this doesn't just have implications for the possibility of life on brown dwarfs‚ but also for life on gas giants and exoplanets.

“If we account for the habitable volumes residing in planetary atmospheres we can significantly increase the volume of habitable space in the galaxy‚” the researchers concluded.

According to Science‚ one should bear in mind that despite possibly habitable conditions‚ life still may not have developed. Life on Earth is believed to have began on water-rock interfaces like vents - which you don't see on gas giants and brown dwarfs.

“Having little microbes that float in and out of a brown dwarf atmosphere is great‚” Duncan Forgan‚ an astrobiologist at the University of St Andrews in the United Kingdom told Science. “But you’ve got to get them there first.”

- TMG Digital/TimesLIVE

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