This artist's concept depicts Kepler-186f, the first validated Earth-size planet to orbit a distant star in the so-called habitable zone. Credit: NASA/Ames/SETI Institute/JPL-Caltech
A study by scientists at ANU on the magnetic fields of planets has found that most planets discovered in other solar systems are unlikely to be as hospitable to life as Earth. Plants and animals would not survive without water on Earth. The sheer strength of Earth's magnetic field helps to maintain liquid water on our blue planet's surface, thereby making it possible for life to thrive. Scientists from the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics modelled the magnetic fields of exoplanets - planets beyond our solar system - and found very few have a magnetic field as strong as Earth. They contend that techniques for finding exoplanets the size of Earth are more likely to find slowly rotating planets locked to their host star in the same way the Moon is locked to Earth, with the same side always facing their host star. The lead author of the study, PhD scholar Sarah McIntyre, said strong magnetic fields may be necessary to keep wet rocky exoplanets habitable. "Magnetic fields appear to play an essential role in making planets habitable, so I wanted to find out how Earth's magnetic field compared to those of other potentially habitable planets," she said.
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