Milky Way’s Star | One-third of planets orbiting Milky Way’s stars may have life potential: study

File Photo Delhi: One third of the planets orbiting stars in the entire Milky Way are likely to have liquid water and life. This information was obtained from a recent study based on telescopic data. The most common stars in our galaxy are generally small and cool compared to the size of the Sun. Billions of planets orbit these common small stars. The analysis, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that two-thirds of the planets orbiting these small stars may be affected by extreme tidal conditions. However, one-third of the planets (millions of planets in the Milky Way) may have the potential for life. “I think this result is going to be really important for the next decade of planetary research,” said Sheela Sagir, a doctoral student at the University of Florida (UF) in the US. Sagir said in a statement that these stars can be an excellent source of finding small planets where water can exist in liquid state and therefore there can be a possibility of life on that planet. Sagir and UF astronomy professor Sarah Ballard studied the orbital eccentricities of more than 150 planets around ‘M dwarf stars’ that are comparable in size to Jupiter. The orbital eccentricity of a celestial body is a measure of the deviation of its orbit from a perfect circle. Read also Using data from the Kepler telescope The more elliptical the orbit, the more eccentric the planets. The planets expand and change their shape due to the changing gravitational forces in their irregular orbits and heat is generated by friction. In such a situation, reaching the climax can make the planet extremely hot and all possibility of having water on it can end. For the study, researchers used data from NASA’s Kepler telescope, which collects information about other stars.