Alien life could thrive on big 'Hycean' exoplanets
By Mike Wall about 8 hours ago
Hycean planets are up to 2.5 times bigger than Earth, with oceans and hydrogen-rich atmospheres.
Artist's illustration of the view from the seas of a potentially habitable "Hycean" exoplanet. (Image credit: Amanda Smith, Nikku Madhusudhan )
The search for alien life should broaden its horizons a bit, a new study suggests.
Alien hunters have to date focused largely on Earthlike planets — a reasonable place to start, given that our rocky, water-covered world is the only one we know of that hosts life. But the universe teems with a huge diversity of planets, some of which may be habitable despite being decidedly un-Earthlike.
In the new study, researchers identify one such class of alien worlds — "Hycean" planets, which are up to 2.5 times larger than Earth and feature huge oceans of liquid water beneath hydrogen-rich atmospheres. Hycean planets appear to be incredibly abundant throughout the Milky Way galaxy, and they could host microbial life similar to the "extremophiles" that thMore:
rive in some of Earth's harshest environments, study team members said.
"Hycean planets open a whole new avenue in our search for life elsewhere," lead author Nikku Madhusudhan, of the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge in England, said in a statement.
Hycean worlds are similar in size to rocky "super-Earths" and gassy "mini-Neptunes," two of the most common types of exoplanet in the galaxy. But the Hyceans are distinct, with densities between those of super-Earths and mini-Neptunes, according to the new study, which was published online Wednesday (Aug. 25) in The Astrophysical Journal.
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https://www.space.com/new-class-habitable-exoplanets-hycean-worlds?utm_source=notification
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