Habitable planets with life on them on dying stars possible, says astronomers
PTI: Washington, Feb 26 2013, 12:52 IST
red giant, engulfing and destroying any nearby planets. Therefore, a planet would have to arrive in the habitable zone after the star evolved into a white dwarf.
Researchers said a planet could form from leftover dust and gas - making it a second-generation world - or migrate inward from a larger distance.
Loeb and his colleague Dan Maoz from Tel Aviv University estimate that a survey of the 500 closest white dwarfs could spot one or more habitable Earths.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), scheduled for launch by the end of this decade, promises to sniff out the gases of these alien worlds.
Loeb and Maoz created a synthetic spectrum, replicating what JWST would see if it examined a habitable planet orbiting a white dwarf. They found that both oxygen and water vapour would be detectable with only a few hours of total observation time.
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