| | |
| | |
Stat |
Members: 3643 Articles: 2'488'730 Articles rated: 2609
29 March 2024 |
|
| | | |
|
Article overview
| |
|
Magnetic shielding of exomoons beyond the circumplanetary habitable edge | René Heller
; Jorge I. Zuluaga
; | Date: |
3 Sep 2013 | Abstract: | With most planets and planetary candidates detected in the stellar habitable
zone (HZ) being super-Earths and gas giants, rather than Earth-like planets, we
naturally wonder if their moons could be habitable. The first detection of such
an exomoon has now become feasible, and due to observational biases it will be
at least twice as massive as Mars. But formation models predict moons can
hardly be as massive as Earth. Hence, a giant planet’s magnetosphere could be
the only possibility for such a moon to be shielded from cosmic and stellar
high-energy radiation. Yet, the planetary radiation belt could also have
detrimental effects on exomoon habitability. We here synthesize models for the
evolution of the magnetic environment of giant planets with thresholds from the
runaway greenhouse (RG) effect to assess the habitability of exomoons. For
modest eccentricities, we find that satellites around Neptune-sized planets in
the center of the HZ around K dwarf stars will either be in an RG state and not
be habitable, or they will be in wide orbits where they will not be affected by
the planetary magnetosphere. Saturn-like planets have stronger fields, and
Jupiter-like planets could coat close-in habitable moons soon after formation.
Moons at distances between about 5 and 20 planetary radii from a giant planet
can be habitable from an illumination and tidal heating point of view, but
still the planetary magnetosphere would critically influence their
habitability. | Source: | arXiv, 1309.0811 | Services: | Forum | Review | PDF | Favorites |
|
|
No review found.
Did you like this article?
Note: answers to reviews or questions about the article must be posted in the forum section.
Authors are not allowed to review their own article. They can use the forum section.
browser claudebot
|
| |
|
|
|
| News, job offers and information for researchers and scientists:
| |