'Tilted' Ocean Planet Could Boast Life

How does living in an endless ocean sound? For some, a perpetual sea-side view may be a dream come true. And that dream may already be a reality for extraterrestrial life, according to a new study which suggests that watery exoplanets tilted on their axis in just the right way would boast a "rather mild" and habitable climate.

Experts have been searching for planets outside or solar system that could support life for a long time now. Nearly 2,000 exoplanets beyond our solar system have been identified to date, and NASA experts and their colleagues recently affirmed their belief that a stunning 10 to 20 percent of all the stars in the sky may host habitable planets.

However, finding a real-world example is harder than it sounds. Exoplanets are initially assessed for their density, gravity, and distance from their star in the hopes of finding an Earth-like terrestrial planet not too hot, but also not too cold for life as we know it.

These factors have recently ruled out countless potential candidates, such as planets that orbit red dwarf stars, or ones that simply wouldn't be able to hold onto their water.

Now, a new factor - a planet's obliquity - may help researchers find exoplanets that are likely habitable.

Obliquity describes the angle of a planet's axis relative to its orbit around a star. Earth, for instance, has a relatively low obliquity, rotating around an axis that is practically perpendicular to the planet of its orbit around the Sun. Promising exoplanets then boast a higher chance of supporting life if they have a low obliquity like Earth.

But, a new study has found that there are some extreme obliquities that could be even more promising - so long as the planet is also completely covered in an ocean.

"The expectation was that such a planet would not be habitable: It would basically boil, and freeze, which would be really tough for life," researcher David Ferreira, formerly of MIT, said in a statement.

However, in a study recently authored by the expert, Ferreira and his colleagues found just the opposite after running a series of in-depth simulations.

"We found that the ocean stores heat during summer and gives it back in winter, so the climate is still pretty mild, even in the heart of the cold polar night," he explained. "So in the search for habitable exoplanets, we're saying, don't discount high-obliquity ones as unsuitable for life."

You can read more about the simulation and results in the journal Icarus.

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