Is Earth really in the habitable zone, and can an exoplanet in the habitable zone be not habitable?

209 views

Everyone knows that stuff like Co2 warms the atmosphere (shocking I know). But I recently heard that if there was none of the natural Co2 we already have, the average temperatures on earth would be around -15 degrees Celsius (could be wrong about that number). I would assume that this is not ideal for life, and if this is the case, is Earth really in the habitable zone, or is it just habitable because of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that make it warmer? Is the variablity of the amount of greenhouse gases accounted for when calculating how big the band of the zone of habitability?

Edit: Got my answer, thanks everybody!

In: 0

6 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

I hate the term “Habitable zone”. It should just be called “liquid water” zone and leave it that. No implication whether life is there or not. Liquid water is extremely interesting chemically to life scientists on earth but we’ve effectively narrowed our interest and scope on places beyond earth thinking that the only worlds worth checking out are where there’s liquid water.

You are viewing 1 out of 6 answers, click here to view all answers.