Giant Clue in the Search for Earth 2.0

Artist concept shows a hypothetical Earth-like planet and two giant neighbors. NASA/JPL Caltech

Study provides fresh insights into how “giant” planets impact — for better or worse — the habitability of neighboring planets

Press Release

In a new study published today in The Astrophysical Journal, researchers from New York University Abu Dhabi and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory  (JPL) in Pasadena, California, share new findings about how the presence of “giant” planets (between 10 and 1000 times as large as the Earth) affects potentially habitable neighbors that would be discovered with the next generation of ground-based and space-borne telescopes.

The researchers, led by Research Associate Nikolaos Georgakarakos of the department of physics at NYU Abu Dhabi, report in "Giant Planets: Good Neighbors for Habitable Worlds" that even after planets have formed with enough water on their surface to potentially support life, “giant” planets can continue to change their orbits and impact their continued habitability in positive or negative ways.

The habitable zone is the region around a star where a planet with an Earth-like atmosphere on a circular orbit can support liquid water on its surface.

Studying 147 extrasolar planetary systems with giant planets (with the parameters of these systems taken from NASA’s exoplanet archive), Georgakarakos and colleagues found that, in most cases, the presence of “giant neighbors” would reduce a terrestrial planet's chances to remain habitable, even when the terrestrial planet is on a stable orbit. A stable orbit means that the terrestrial planet is not ejected from the system, or pushed to the outskirts. It is important that the complex gravitational interactions between the star, the terrestrial planet, and its ‘’giant neighbor’’ result in a stable orbit for the Earth-like planet as the development and evolution of life on a planet requires long timescales. 

Findings Help Identify Potential Targets in Search for “Earth 2.0”

“While in the majority of investigated systems the presence of the gas ‘giants’ shrank the habitable zone, they still left sufficient room for habitable Earth-like planets to be there,” says Georgakarakos. “This is an important insight to inform follow-up investigations. It would not make sense to search for Earth 2.0 in a system where a giant planet stirs the orbit of any neighboring terrestrial planet in the habitable zone so much that its climate collapses.”

It would not make sense to search for Earth 2.0 in a system where a giant planet stirs the orbit of any neighboring terrestrial planet in the habitable zone so much that its climate collapses.

Nikolaos Georgakarakos, NYUAD research associate in physics

Siegfried Eggl, associate researcher at JPL, added, “Perhaps most surprisingly, our findings suggest that, under certain conditions, the presence of a giant planet can actually increase the size of the habitable zone, which is the area where your terrestrial planet receives the right amount of light in order to support liquid water on its surface. This is quite remarkable since the continuous gravitational pull of giant planets on their terrestrial neighbors mostly spells trouble for habitability.”

By providing specific constraints on when precisely giant planets become “bad neighbors,” Georgakarakos, Eggl, and Ian Dobbs-Dixon, NYUAD assistant professor of physics, were able to identify prime targets in the ongoing search for a “second Earth.” “The general idea is the farther away the giant planet is from the habitable zone, the better. For planets that are similar to our Earth that is actually true. What we showed, however, is that this may not necessarily be the case for Earth-like planets with a climate less sensitive to changes in the incoming radiation,” Georgakarakos said.


About NYU Abu Dhabi

NYU Abu Dhabi is the first comprehensive liberal arts and research campus in the Middle East to be operated abroad by a major American research university. NYU Abu Dhabi has integrated a highly selective undergraduate curriculum across the disciplines with a world center for advanced research and scholarship. The university enables its students in the sciences, engineering, social sciences, humanities, and arts to succeed in an increasingly interdependent world and advance cooperation and progress on humanity’s shared challenges. NYU Abu Dhabi’s high-achieving students have come from over 115 countries and speak over 115 languages. Together, NYU's campuses in New York, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai form the backbone of a unique global university, giving faculty and students opportunities to experience varied learning environments and immersion in other cultures at one or more of the numerous study-abroad sites NYU maintains on six continents.