Do small planets fit for life?

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Until now, the planet is still the only one where all the conditions and factors suitable for the life of the creatures are available, first and foremost the availability of water.

But scientists believe that there are other planets outside the solar system, called exoplanets, where water and the rest of life can flourish.These planets orbit their stars at an appropriate distance in an area called the habitable range, sometimes called moderate planets.

It is an area around a star, where there is a planet of the size of the planet, and a similar composition, and contains water, considering that water is an essential element for the existence of all types of life. Planets in this range are planets that may have some kind of extraterrestrial life.

Habitable range
In a search for viable exoplanets, ScienceArt reported on October 25 a report on a scientific study by Harvard researchers that found that exoplanets are very small in size and density, orbiting stars other than the sun. Water can be available, which means that you can live in it.

This is a new scientific discovery, since it was prevalent that large rocky planets, such as Earth, could preserve their liquid water - and their atmosphere - more easily than the very small planets, whose attractiveness is weaker, so the results of this study go beyond the traditional view of the planets that It was required to be so dense that it could hold onto its water.

According to a Harvard statement, planets are habitable if they can preserve surface liquid water long enough to allow life to evolve. Astronomers look for these planets that are viable within certain distances for certain types of stars; smaller, cooler, and less mass stars than our Sun have a range. Habitable much closer to larger, hoter stars.

How close the planet is to the star
While the traditional view is that small celestial bodies cannot support life because they do not have enough gravity to preserve the atmosphere, Harvard scientists argue that even the very small rocky exoplanets orbiting other stars may still hold onto their water, which Increases the chances that some of them will be habitable, depending on the inner edge of the habitable range by how close the planet is to the star, before the impact of the wild greenhouse evaporates all surface water.

According to this study, scientists have determined a certain extent in the sizes of planets that can preserve liquid water, where they found that the critical size that can be habitable is about 2.7% of the Earth's mass.

If the body is less than 2.7% of Earth's mass, it will escape the atmosphere before it has the chance to develop surface liquid water, such as what happens to comets in the solar system today.

To put this into context, the Moon is 1.2% of Earth's mass, and Mercury is 5.53%.