Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Planetary habitability in the Solar System is the study that searches the possible existence of past or present extraterrestrial life in those celestial bodies. As exoplanets are too far away and can only be studied by indirect means, the celestial bodies in the Solar System allow for a much more detailed study: direct telescope observation, space probes, rovers and even human spaceflight.
Usually (although not always) unicellular, extremophiles include acutely alkaliphilic and acidophilic organisms and others that can survive water temperatures above 100 °C in hydrothermal vents. The discovery of life in extreme conditions has complicated definitions of habitability, but also generated much excitement amongst researchers in ...
Habitable zone (HZ) (also called the circumstellar habitable zone), the orbit around a star that would allow liquid water to remain for a short period of time (a given period of time) on at least a small part of the planet's surface. Thus within the HZ, water, (H 2 O) is between 0 °C (32 °F; 273 K) and 100 °C (212 °F; 373 K) temperature.
Surface planetary habitability is thought to require an orbit at the right distance from the host star for liquid surface water to be present, in addition to various geophysical and geodynamical aspects, atmospheric density, radiation type and intensity, and the host star's plasma environment. [2]
The immediate needs for breathable air and drinkable water are addressed by a life support system, a group of devices that allow human beings to survive in outer space. [15] The life support system supplies air, water and food. It must also maintain temperature and pressure within acceptable limits and deal with the body's waste products ...
Assuming the process that delivered water to Earth was common to all the planets near the habitable zone, it has been estimated that liquid water could have existed on its surface for up to 600 million years during and shortly after the Late Heavy Bombardment, which could be enough time for simple life to form, but this figure can vary from as ...
The 2006 announcement by the Keck Observatory that the binary Trojan asteroid 617 Patroclus, [17] and possibly large numbers of other Trojan objects in Jupiter's orbit, are likely composed of water ice, with a layer of dust, and the hypothesized large amounts of water ice on the closer, main-belt asteroid 1 Ceres, suggest that importing ...
Direct human presence in space was achieved with Yuri Gagarin flying a space capsule in 1961 for one orbit around Earth for the first time. While direct human presence in open space, by exiting a spacecraft in a spacesuit, a so-called extravehicular activity, has been achieved since the first person to do so, Alexei Leonov, in 1965.