An article published in the journal “The Astrophysical Journal” offers a new definition of the habitable zone of ​​a star system where a planet that can accommodate life forms similar to the Earth’s can orbit. A team of researchers coordinated by the University of California – Riverside examined the available data on the atmospheres of exoplanets with orbits in what until now has been considered the habitable zone discovering that in most cases there’s an amount of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide toxic for complex life forms as we know them. In essence, the new definition significantly reduces the habitable zone.

An article published in the journal “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society” reports the discovery of an exoplanet belonging to the mini-Neptune class in an orbit close to its star, where a planet of that type should not exist, so much that it’s called Neptunian Desert. A team of astronomers coordinated by the University of Warwick used the Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) array in Chile to locate the exoplanet, which was therefore cataloged as NGTS-4b. It may have got closer to its star or was originally larger but part of its atmosphere was consumed by stellar radiation.