#biospheres — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #biospheres, aggregated by home.social.
-
The classical circumstellar #habitable zone restricts the search for #life to planetary surfaces where stellar irradiation sustains liquid water, overlooking vast subsurface environments.
In a new paper, researchers present a geophysical model integrating internal radial structure, mineralogy, radiogenic heat, and pressure-dependent porosity to quantify the three-dimensional habitable volume-the eirenesphere-of rocky #exoplanets.
They manage to distinguish between aquability (thermodynamic water stability) and habitability, which requires temperatures and pressures within extremophile biological limits, plus sufficient porosity for fluid circulation.
Applying rhe model they find that Earth’s current state represents only a moderate regime.
Instead, mature super-Earths with high geothermal activity provide the most extensive environments for deep #biospheres.
Crustal mineralogy exerts a first-order control: thermally insulating felsic crusts sustain significantly larger eirenespheres than primary mafic lithologies.
Tracking secular cooling reveals internal habitability is an evolutionary property; young planets host confined biospheres due to steep thermal gradients, whereas mature worlds maximize habitable volumes over billions of years.
Around solar-like #stars, subsurface habitability persists out to 5−7 au, effectively decoupling life’s potential from surface radiative balance.
Extrapolating to the Milky Way reveals a staggering galactic capacity for subsurface life, on the order of billions of terrestrial oceans.
#astrobiology #astronomy
https://astrobiology.com/2026/09/24/inside-the-eirenesphere-the-interplay-of-porosity-heat-flux-and-mineralogy-in-exoplanetary-aquable-and-habitable-layers/Paper by Orjuela & Zuluaga (2026):
https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25280 -
The classical circumstellar #habitable zone restricts the search for #life to planetary surfaces where stellar irradiation sustains liquid water, overlooking vast subsurface environments.
In a new paper, researchers present a geophysical model integrating internal radial structure, mineralogy, radiogenic heat, and pressure-dependent porosity to quantify the three-dimensional habitable volume-the eirenesphere-of rocky #exoplanets.
They manage to distinguish between aquability (thermodynamic water stability) and habitability, which requires temperatures and pressures within extremophile biological limits, plus sufficient porosity for fluid circulation.
Applying rhe model they find that Earth’s current state represents only a moderate regime.
Instead, mature super-Earths with high geothermal activity provide the most extensive environments for deep #biospheres.
Crustal mineralogy exerts a first-order control: thermally insulating felsic crusts sustain significantly larger eirenespheres than primary mafic lithologies.
Tracking secular cooling reveals internal habitability is an evolutionary property; young planets host confined biospheres due to steep thermal gradients, whereas mature worlds maximize habitable volumes over billions of years.
Around solar-like #stars, subsurface habitability persists out to 5−7 au, effectively decoupling life’s potential from surface radiative balance.
Extrapolating to the Milky Way reveals a staggering galactic capacity for subsurface life, on the order of billions of terrestrial oceans.
#astrobiology #astronomy
https://astrobiology.com/2026/09/24/inside-the-eirenesphere-the-interplay-of-porosity-heat-flux-and-mineralogy-in-exoplanetary-aquable-and-habitable-layers/Paper by Orjuela & Zuluaga (2026):
https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25280 -
The classical circumstellar #habitable zone restricts the search for #life to planetary surfaces where stellar irradiation sustains liquid water, overlooking vast subsurface environments.
In a new paper, researchers present a geophysical model integrating internal radial structure, mineralogy, radiogenic heat, and pressure-dependent porosity to quantify the three-dimensional habitable volume-the eirenesphere-of rocky #exoplanets.
They manage to distinguish between aquability (thermodynamic water stability) and habitability, which requires temperatures and pressures within extremophile biological limits, plus sufficient porosity for fluid circulation.
Applying rhe model they find that Earth’s current state represents only a moderate regime.
Instead, mature super-Earths with high geothermal activity provide the most extensive environments for deep #biospheres.
Crustal mineralogy exerts a first-order control: thermally insulating felsic crusts sustain significantly larger eirenespheres than primary mafic lithologies.
Tracking secular cooling reveals internal habitability is an evolutionary property; young planets host confined biospheres due to steep thermal gradients, whereas mature worlds maximize habitable volumes over billions of years.
Around solar-like #stars, subsurface habitability persists out to 5−7 au, effectively decoupling life’s potential from surface radiative balance.
Extrapolating to the Milky Way reveals a staggering galactic capacity for subsurface life, on the order of billions of terrestrial oceans.
#astrobiology #astronomy
https://astrobiology.com/2026/09/24/inside-the-eirenesphere-the-interplay-of-porosity-heat-flux-and-mineralogy-in-exoplanetary-aquable-and-habitable-layers/Paper by Orjuela & Zuluaga (2026):
https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25280 -
The classical circumstellar #habitable zone restricts the search for #life to planetary surfaces where stellar irradiation sustains liquid water, overlooking vast subsurface environments.
In a new paper, researchers present a geophysical model integrating internal radial structure, mineralogy, radiogenic heat, and pressure-dependent porosity to quantify the three-dimensional habitable volume-the eirenesphere-of rocky #exoplanets.
They manage to distinguish between aquability (thermodynamic water stability) and habitability, which requires temperatures and pressures within extremophile biological limits, plus sufficient porosity for fluid circulation.
Applying rhe model they find that Earth’s current state represents only a moderate regime.
Instead, mature super-Earths with high geothermal activity provide the most extensive environments for deep #biospheres.
Crustal mineralogy exerts a first-order control: thermally insulating felsic crusts sustain significantly larger eirenespheres than primary mafic lithologies.
Tracking secular cooling reveals internal habitability is an evolutionary property; young planets host confined biospheres due to steep thermal gradients, whereas mature worlds maximize habitable volumes over billions of years.
Around solar-like #stars, subsurface habitability persists out to 5−7 au, effectively decoupling life’s potential from surface radiative balance.
Extrapolating to the Milky Way reveals a staggering galactic capacity for subsurface life, on the order of billions of terrestrial oceans.
#astrobiology #astronomy
https://astrobiology.com/2026/09/24/inside-the-eirenesphere-the-interplay-of-porosity-heat-flux-and-mineralogy-in-exoplanetary-aquable-and-habitable-layers/Paper by Orjuela & Zuluaga (2026):
https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25280 -
The classical circumstellar #habitable zone restricts the search for #life to planetary surfaces where stellar irradiation sustains liquid water, overlooking vast subsurface environments.
In a new paper, researchers present a geophysical model integrating internal radial structure, mineralogy, radiogenic heat, and pressure-dependent porosity to quantify the three-dimensional habitable volume-the eirenesphere-of rocky #exoplanets.
They manage to distinguish between aquability (thermodynamic water stability) and habitability, which requires temperatures and pressures within extremophile biological limits, plus sufficient porosity for fluid circulation.
Applying rhe model they find that Earth’s current state represents only a moderate regime.
Instead, mature super-Earths with high geothermal activity provide the most extensive environments for deep #biospheres.
Crustal mineralogy exerts a first-order control: thermally insulating felsic crusts sustain significantly larger eirenespheres than primary mafic lithologies.
Tracking secular cooling reveals internal habitability is an evolutionary property; young planets host confined biospheres due to steep thermal gradients, whereas mature worlds maximize habitable volumes over billions of years.
Around solar-like #stars, subsurface habitability persists out to 5−7 au, effectively decoupling life’s potential from surface radiative balance.
Extrapolating to the Milky Way reveals a staggering galactic capacity for subsurface life, on the order of billions of terrestrial oceans.
#astrobiology #astronomy
https://astrobiology.com/2026/09/24/inside-the-eirenesphere-the-interplay-of-porosity-heat-flux-and-mineralogy-in-exoplanetary-aquable-and-habitable-layers/Paper by Orjuela & Zuluaga (2026):
https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25280