Astronomy 2021A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Urban Heat Island, Core Data, White Dwarf
1 Jun 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
10. 1 the concept of a habitable zone. A star"s habitable zone moves outward over time, as stars tend to brighten as they age. At any particular time, a star"s habitable zone is the range of distances around it at which a planet could potentially have surface temperatures that would allow for abundant liquid water. Mars, europa, and titan are some of the places in the solar system that may have had life in the past or present. Telescopic images and spectra are our only realistic hope of finding life on extra solar planets or moons. Life existing outside the habitable zone is possible if: Small pockets of subsurface groundwater exist e. g. on mars: water would be kept liquid by geological conditions rather than solar heat. Subsurface oceans: from the melting of subsurface ice from tidal heating and radioactive decay. Hard to detect due to small size and low brightness. 10. 2 venus: an example in potential habitability.
