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Habitable moons around extrasolar giant planets

Nature volume 385, pages 234–236 (1997)Cite this article

Abstract

Possible planetary objects have now been discovered1–9 orbiting nine different main-sequence stars. These companion objects (some of which might actually be brown dwarfs) all have a mass at least half that of Jupiter, and are therefore unlikely to be hospitable to Earth-like life: jovian planets and brown dwarfs support neither a solid nor a liquid surface near which organisms might dwell. Here we argue that rocky moons orbiting these companions could be habitable if the planet–moon system orbits the parent star within the so-called 'habitable zone'10, where life-supporting liquid water11 could be present. The companions to the stars 16 Cygni B and 47 Ursae Majoris might satisfy this criterion. Such a moon would, however, need to be large enough (>0.12 Earth masses) to retain a substantial and long-lived atmosphere, and would also need to possess a strong magnetic field in order to prevent its atmosphere from being sputtered away by the constant bombardment of energetic ions from the planet's magnetosphere.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, 525 Davey Laboratory, University Park, Pennsylvania, 16802, USA

    Darren M. Williams & Richard A. Wade

  2. Department of Geosciences, The Pennsylvania State University, 211 Deike Building, University Park, Pennsylvania, 16802, USA

    James F. Kasting

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  1. Darren M. Williams
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  2. James F. Kasting
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  3. Richard A. Wade
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Williams, D., Kasting, J. & Wade, R. Habitable moons around extrasolar giant planets. Nature 385, 234–236 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/385234a0

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