New NASA three-dimensional model: Searching for lives on alien planets is now a bit easier

A latest study led by a group of scientists from American space agency NASA, a brand new model is capable enough to enhance the searching ability of the habitable exoplanets beyond our solar system that might support life.

The research will further refine our understanding regarding the atmospheric conditions across three different dimensions instead of one, as in previous models.

"Using a model that more realistically simulates atmospheric conditions, we discovered a new process that controls the habitability of exoplanets and will guide us in identifying candidates for further study," lead author Yuka Fujii of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), New York, New York and the Earth-Life Science Institute at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan was quoted while talking about their latest models based on new NASA research.

Moreover, an exoplanet which has some significant sign of supporting life should allow liquid water to be present on the surface of it for a sufficient time (billions of years) as water is one of those principal things on an alien planet for life. 

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In order for water vapor to rise to the stratosphere, previous models predicted that long-term surface temperatures had to be greater than anything experienced on Earth - over 150 degrees Fahrenheit (66° Celsius).

These temperatures would power intense convective storms; however, it turns out that these storms aren't the reason water reaches the stratosphere for slowly rotating planets entering a moist greenhouse state.

"We found an important role for the type of radiation a star emits and the effect it has on the atmospheric circulation of an exoplanet in making the moist greenhouse state," Fujii added further.

Moreover, while the new model supports three-dimensional system, the previous one was only one dimensional, vertical.

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The study has recently been published in the Astrophysical Journal on October 17.