The Resilience of Life to Astrophysical Events

<p>Much attention has been given in the literature to the effects of astrophysical events on human and land-based life. However, little has been discussed on the resilience of life itself. Here we instead explore the statistics of events that completely sterilise an Earth-like planet with plan...

সম্পূর্ণ বিবরণ

গ্রন্থ-পঞ্জীর বিবরন
প্রধান লেখক: Sloan, D, Alves Batista, R, Loeb, A
বিন্যাস: Journal article
ভাষা:English
প্রকাশিত: Springer Nature 2017
বিবরন
সংক্ষিপ্ত:<p>Much attention has been given in the literature to the effects of astrophysical events on human and land-based life. However, little has been discussed on the resilience of life itself. Here we instead explore the statistics of events that completely sterilise an Earth-like planet with planet radii in the range 0.5-1.5R ⊕ and temperatures of &amp;Tilde;300 K, eradicating all forms of life. We consider the relative likelihood of complete global sterilisation events from three astrophysical sources - supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, large asteroid impacts, and passing-by stars. To assess such probabilities we consider what cataclysmic event could lead to the annihilation of not just human life, but also extremophiles, through the boiling of all water in Earth&amp;apos;s oceans. Surprisingly we find that although human life is somewhat fragile to nearby events, the resilience of Ecdysozoa such as Milnesium tardigradum renders global sterilisation an unlikely event.</p>