'How life began': Study explains how a moon helps create life on a planet

'How life began': Study explains how a moon helps create life on a planet

Over time, a vaporized disk cools down and liquid moonlets emerge as the building blocks of a moon.

The moon is essential to the functioning of Earth; as it controls the length of the day and ocean tides, which affect life cycles on our planet. Additionally, the moon makes the Earth's climate more stable by stabilising its spin axis, which provides an ideal environment in which life can develop.

According to a recent study, a moon could also be an advantageous feature in harbouring life on other planets.

The journal 'Nature Communications' published the study.

Nakajima and her colleagues conducted computer simulations with a number of hypothetical rocky planets and ice planets of varying masses in order to determine whether other planets can form similar large moons.

The team hoped to identify whether the simulated impacts would lead to partially vaporized disks, much like the disk that formed Earth's moon.

The researchers found that rocky planets larger than six times the mass of Earth (6M) and icy planets larger than one Earth mass (1M) produced fully vaporized disks as opposed to partially vaporized disks, and these fully vaporized disks cannot produce fractionally large moons.

"We found that if the planet is too massive, these impacts produce completely vapour disks because impacts between massive planets are generally more energetic than those between small planets," Nakajima said.

Over time, a vaporized disk cools down and liquid moonlets emerge as the building blocks of a moon.

While a fully vaporized disk creates a strong gas drag from the vapour, causing the moonlets to fall very quickly onto the planet. By contrast, if a disk is partially vaporized, moonlets do not experience such a strong gas drag.

"As a result, we conclude that a completely vapour disk is not capable of forming fractionally large moons," Nakajima said. "Planetary masses need to be smaller than those thresholds we identified in order to produce such moons."

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The constraints Nakajima and her colleagues outline are vital for astronomers looking for exoplanets and possible exomoons; researchers have yet to find a moon orbiting a planet beyond the solar system.

It is hoped that this research will help them identify where to start.

As Nakajima said: "The exoplanet search has typically been focused on planets larger than six earth masses. We are proposing that instead, we should look at smaller planets because they are probably better candidates to host fractionally large moons."

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