Scientists create new Habitability Index for detecting alien life.
Q. Researchers have created a new index for searching for alien life called ___________________.- Published on 08 Oct 15a. Living Index for Transiting Planets
b. Habitability Index for Transiting Planets
c. Habitability Index for Planets in Transition
d. None of the above
ANSWER: Habitability Index for Transiting Planets
Scientists have created a Habitability index for transiting planets which can arrive at a single number habitability index showing the probability of liquid water on the surface of the planet. Earlier, astronomers focused on looking for planets in the star’s habitable zone called “Goldilocks zone”, a swath of space just enough to give orbiting earth like planets chance to have liquid water and life on the surface. This has been a binary designation and the habitability index is more precise. The index has been created by University of Washington professors R. Barnes and V. Meadows along with research assistant Nicole Evans. A phenomenon called “eccentricity—albedo degeneracy,” which comments on a sort of balancing act between a planet’s albedo — the energy reflected back to space from its surface — and the circularity of its orbit, which affects how much energy it receives from its host star such that they counteract each other was also proposed by the scientists. Higher a planet’s albedo, the more light and energy are reflected off to space, leaving less at the surface to warm the world and aid possible life and if planet’s orbit is irregular, then more intense is the energy it gets when passing close to its star in its elliptic journey.A planet in the inner edge of the habitable zone should be in higher albedo to cool the world while planets on outer edge of habitable zone will need higher level of orbital eccentricity to generate energy needed for life.
