121 giant exoplanets in habitable zones may have habitable moons

Researchers have identified more than 100 giant planets that potentially host moons capable of supporting life. Their work will guide the design of future telescopes that can detect these potential moons and look for tell-tale signs of life, called biosignatures, in their atmospheres.

Since the 2009 launch of NASA’s Kepler telescope, scientists have identified thousands of planets outside our solar system, which are called exoplanets. A primary goal of the Kepler mission is to identify planets that are in the habitable zones of their stars, meaning it’s neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water — and potentially life — to exist.

Terrestrial (rocky) planets are prime targets in the quest to find life because some of them might be geologically and atmospherically similar to Earth. Another place to look is the many gas giants identified during the Kepler mission. While not a candidate for life themselves, Jupiter-like planets in the habitable zone may harbor rocky moons, called exomoons, that could sustain life.

“There are currently 175 known moons orbiting the eight planets in our solar system. While most of these moons orbit Saturn and Jupiter, which are outside the Sun’s habitable zone, that may not be the case in other solar systems,” said Stephen Kane, an associate professor of planetary astrophysics and a member of the UCR’s Alternative Earths Astrobiology Center. “Including rocky exomoons in our search for life in space will greatly expand the places we can look.”

121 giant planets have orbits within the habitable zones of their stars. At more than three times the radii of the Earth, these gaseous planets are less common than terrestrial planets, but each is expected to host several large moons.

Scientists have speculated that exomoons might provide a favorable environment for life, perhaps even better than Earth. That’s because they receive energy not only from their star, but also from radiation reflected from their planet. Until now, no exomoons have been confirmed.

“Now that we have created a database of the known giant planets in the habitable zone of their star, observations of the best candidates for hosting potential exomoons will be made to help refine the expected exomoon properties. Our follow-up studies will help inform future telescope design so that we can detect these moons, study their properties, and look for signs of life,” said Michelle Hill, an undergraduate student at the University of Southern Queensland who is working with Kane and will join UCR’s graduate program in the fall.

Arxiv – Exploring Kepler Giant Planets in the Habitable Zone

The Kepler mission found hundreds of planet candidates within the habitable zones (HZ) of their host star, including over 70 candidates with radii larger than 3 Earth radii (R⊕) within the optimistic habitbale zone (OHZ) (Kane et al. 2016). These giant planets are potential hosts to large terrestrial satellites (or exomoons) which would also exist in the HZ. We calculate the occurrence rates of giant planets (Rp=~3.0–25~R⊕) in the OHZ and find a frequency of (6.5±1.9)% for G stars, (11.5±3.1)% for K stars, and (6±6)% for M stars. We compare this with previously estimated occurrence rates of terrestrial planets in the HZ of G, K and M stars and find that if each giant planet has one large terrestrial moon then these moons are less likely to exist in the HZ than terrestrial planets. However, if each giant planet holds more than one moon, then the occurrence rates of moons in the HZ would be comparable to that of terrestrial planets, and could potentially exceed them. We estimate the mass of each planet candidate using the mass-radius relationship developed by Chen and Kipping (2016). We calculate the Hill radius of each planet to determine the area of influence of the planet in which any attached moon may reside, then calculate the estimated angular separation of the moon and planet for future imaging missions. Finally, we estimate the radial velocity semi-amplitudes of each planet for use in follow up observations.