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Super-Earths and life - a fascinating puzzle: Example GJ 581d

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2011

Lisa Kaltenegger ,
Antígona Segura  and
Subhanjoy Mohanty
Lisa Kaltenegger
Affiliation:
MPIA, Koenigstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany also Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden st., 02138 MA Cambridge, USA email: [email protected]
Antígona Segura
Affiliation:
Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico
Subhanjoy Mohanty
Affiliation:
Imperial College London, 1010 Blackett Lab., Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2AZ, UK
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Abstract

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Spurred by the recent large number of radial velocity detections and the discovery of several transiting system and among those two planets, that are consistent with rocky composition, the study of planets orbiting nearby stars has now entered an era of characterizing massive terrestrial planets (aka super-Earths). One prominent question is, if such planets could be habitats. Here we focuss on one particular planet Gl581d. For Earth-like assumptions, we investigate the minimal atmospheric conditions for Gl581d to be potentially habitable at its current position, and if habitability could be remotely detected in its spectra. The model we present here only represents one possible nature an Earth-like composition - of a planet like Gl581d in a wide parameter space. Future observations of atmospheric features of such super-Earths can be used to examine if our concept of habitability and its dependence on the carbonate-silicate cycle is correct, and also assess whether Gl581d is indeed the first detected habitable super-Earth. We will need spectroscopic measurements to probe the atmosphere of such planets to break the degeneracy of mass and radius measurements and characterize a planetary environment.

Keywords

astrobiologystars: individual (Gl581)planetary systemsEarthtechniques: spectroscopic
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 6 , Symposium S276: The Astrophysics of Planetary Systems: Formation, Structure, and Dynamical Evolution , October 2010 , pp. 376 - 384
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2011

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