Astronomers develop climate 'Decoder' to explore habitable conditions on exoplanets

Cornell University astromers examined a dozen s of suns and a roster of planet surfaces and developed ‘an environmental colour decoder’ to unravel climate signal for potentially habitable exoplanets in galaxies far away.

"We looked at how different planetary surfaces in habitable zones of distant solar systems could affect climate on exoplanets," said Jack Mden, associate professor of astromy and director of Cornell's Carl Sagan Institute.

"Reflected light on surface of planets plays a significant role t only on overall climate but also on detectable spectra of Earth-like planets," Mden ded.

Mden and Kaltenegger are co-authors of 'How Surfaces Shape Climate of Habitable Exoplanets,' released in monthly tices of Royal Astromical Society.

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About ir research

In ir research, y combine detail of a planet's surface colour and light from its host star to calculate a climate. "Think about wearing a dark shirt on a hot summer day. You are going to heat up more because dark shirt is t reflecting light. It has a low albedo (it absorbs light) and it retains heat. If you wear a light colour, such as white, its high albedo reflects light -- and your shirt keeps you cool," Mden said.

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Depending on kind of star and exoplanet's primary colour, planet's colour can mitigate some of energy given off by star. number of clouds surrounding exoplanet determines its surface. colour of sun can change an exoplanet's climate significantly, Kaltenegger said.

Mden said that forthcoming instruments like Earth-bound Extremely Large Telescope will allow scientists to gar data to test a catalogue of climate predictions.

"re is an important interaction between colour of a surface and light hitting it. effects we found based on a planet's surface properties can help in search for life," he furr said.

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(With inputs from ANI)