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The New Habitable Zones Include Asimov's Ribbon Worlds
The Habitable Zone is the usually considered to be the orbit defined by whether or not liquid water might be found on the surface of a planet.
This new paper suggests that there might be other ways to find habitable planets. As usual, science fiction writers are way ahead of them.
Consider ribbon worlds as described by Isaac Asimov in The Mule, published in 1945:
Even earlier, Harl Vincent described a narrow belt climate in Too Many Boards!, published in 1931:
In his new paper, Exoplanets beyond the Conservative Habitable Zone, Amri Wandel describes these worlds among others.
Radole was a small world ... It was a ribbon world – of which the Galaxy boasts a sufficient number, but among which, the inhabited variety is a rarity for the physical requirements are difficult to meet. It was a world, in other words, where the two halves face the monotonous extremes of heat and cold, while the region of possible life is the girdling ribbon of the twilight zone.
"...Where else is there to go-?"
"Mercury!"
"Larry! It has a terrible climate and is — oh — uncivilized. Besides, its government is unrecognized by the Tri-planetary Alliance. We'd be exiles in an awful land where we could never live in peace."
"Honey — listen ! It's just the opposite. I've a very good friend, Chic Davis, who's captain of the Rocket III, one of the Tri-planetarian liners. He tells me Mercury is the finest of all the inhabited bodies. It's terrifically hot on the side always toward the sun and frigid on the other, but there's a narrow belt where the climate is moderate — semi-tropical by earthly standards. And it's not uncivilized, but highly cultured...
(Exoplanets beyond the Conservative Habitable Zone)
Potentially habitable exoplanets, of K and M dwarf stars, are expected to be tidally locked, with one hemisphere permanently facing the star. Initially, this configuration raised concerns about extreme temperature gradients and atmospheric collapse on the dark side (M. M. Joshi et al. 1997). However, 3D climate models have demonstrated that given a sufficient atmospheric pressure, or the presence of an ocean, efficient heat redistribution between the day and night sides can stabilize temperatures and maintain habitable conditions...
(Exoplanets beyond the Conservative Habitable Zone)
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