The greenhouse effect can prevent life from living outside of Earth

A strong greenhouse effect can make the planet too dry, detrimental to life development.

According to Live Science, water is essential for life to grow on a planet. During the search for life outside the solar system, scientists focused on the " habitable zone" around the stars. There, Earth-like planets have temperatures not too hot, or not too cold for liquid water to exist on the surface.

A planet whose orbit is too close to its star will become dry. According to a study published in the journal Nature Communications on Feb. 9, the hot degree of dryness of a planet depends on carbon dioxide. The type of gas that contributes to this greenhouse effect also has a strong impact as the planetary heat from the parent star.

"This finding is very interesting. You need to know more than just a planet to determine if it is a habitable place , " Live Science quoted Max Popp at Max Meteorology Institute. Planck, Hamburg, Germany, the main author of the main study.

The planet orbits the star Coku Tau 4, 420 light years from Earth.(Photo: NASA).

In the case of Venus, water evaporates from the planet's surface accumulating in the upper atmosphere, then escaping into space. This process is also known as "moist greenhouse effect". To date, almost all of Venus's atmosphere is CO2. In contrast, the Earth has the ability to hold water, because its upper atmosphere is quite dry.

To better understand the conditions that create a high-level greenhouse effect, Popp and colleagues created a 3D model of an Earth-like planet. This simulator planet is completely covered by water. The team ignored the complex effects of continents and seasons.

The results show that, when the CO2 in the model reaches 1,520 parts per million (ie 1,520 molecules of CO2 in a million molecules of air), the planet's climate becomes unstable. The surface temperature quickly increased to about 57 ° C, creating a warm and humid greenhouse-like environment.

"The Earth-like planet will eventually turn into a very hot climate in a relatively sudden manner," Popp said.

According to the team, greenhouse gases can damage life on an orbiting planet too close to the parent star. This happens when the amount of CO2 on the planet is much higher than Earth today.

"The study is designed to make a comparison between the heat from solar energy and carbon dioxide , " Popp said.