Earth Only Has An 82% Chance Of Sustaining Life, Says New ‘Habitability Calculation’

Earth has scored a disappointing 82 per cent chance of being able to sustain life, according to a new calculation that’s designed to assess whether exoplanets are inhabitable.

While the news is somewhat surprising given that there has been some form of life on our home planet for at least 4 billion years, it could also be an important breakthrough.

The ‘habitability index’ was developed by researchers at the University of Washington’s Virtual Planetary Laboratory to help scientist prioritise the search for life on exoplanets.

The calculation takes numerous factors into account such as the planet’s terrain, whether its atmospheric pressure would allow liquid water to exist on the surface and how close it is to its host star.

If Earth were spotted from hundreds or thousands of light years away by alien astronomers, it would probably be considered too close to its host star - the sun - to be able to support life.

“We actually are kind of close to the inner edge of the habitable zone. If we spotted Earth with our current techniques, we would reasonably conclude that it could be too hot for life,” said the Virtual Planetary Laboratory’s Rory Barnes.

The point of the paper, the researchers argue, is that it would be better to put resources into exploring a distant planet with a higher habitability index rating, rather than a planet that looks like an Earth ‘twin’.

While Earth is in the ‘Goldilocks’ spot, in that it’s not too close, or too far from the sun, it would be too risky a gamble for astronomers from other planets as the chances of life existing would be too low.

However, it could be argued that if the ‘aliens’ were to take the risk, it would pay off.

The paper is published in the journal Astrophysics.

Image credit: NASA