Carbon levels could be used to detect water-rich, oceanic exoplanets

Carbon levels could be used to detect water-rich, oceanic exoplanets

Detecting carbon on exoplanets could reveal whether that planet has liquid water oceans, and therefore whether it has habitable conditions.

Published: February 28, 2024 at 9:18 am

Astronomers could soon be tracking down exoplanets with liquid water oceans not by looking for the presence of water, but instead by searching for the absence of carbon dioxide in their atmospheres.

The search for habitable planets beyond our Solar System has been governed by the search for liquid water in space, but there are no observatories that can detect surface water directly.

However, space telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope are able to observe carbon dioxide in a planet’s atmosphere.

JWST spectra. Several features are highlighted as showing signs of Methane and carbon dioxide, as well as two regions which show a signautre of Dimethyl Sulphide mixed in with the other two chemicals.
Data on exoplanet K2-18 b, captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, displays an abundance of methane and carbon dioxide in the exoplanet’s atmosphere. Credit: NASA/Webb

"On Earth, much of the atmospheric carbon dioxide has been sequestered in sea water and solid rock, which has helped to regulate climate and habitability for billions of years," says Frieder Klein from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who took part in the study alongside astronomers from MIT.

This means our planet has significantly less carbon dioxide in its atmosphere than the similarly sized Venus and Mars.

By looking for extrasolar systems with several similarly sized terrestrial planets, it could be possible to spot one where a water ocean has absorbed most of the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. 

news.mit.edu

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