Galactic habitability re-examined: indications of bimodality

Stojkovic, Nikola; Vukotić, Branislav; Martinović, N.; Ćirković, Milan M.; Micic, M.

doi:10.1093/mnras/stz2519

Cited by 17 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 85 publications

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“…3 Although there are some vital factors that have been set aside, our analysis suggests that TDEs might exert a substantive influence on planetary habitability at distances 0.1-1 kpc from the central black hole of the MW. Hence, not only may they merit further investigation along the same lines as supernovae, gamma-ray bursts and AGNs, but they ought to be incorporated into state-of-the-art numerical models that track the spatio-temporal evolution of of galactic habitability at subkpc distances (Dayal et al 2015;Forgan et al 2017;Stojković et al 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of tidal disruption events on galactic habitability

Pacetti

Balbi

Lingam

et al. 2020

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Tidal Disruption Events (TDEs) are characterized by the emission of a short burst of high-energy radiation. We analyze the cumulative impact of TDEs on galactic habitability using the Milky Way as a proxy. We show that X-rays and extreme ultraviolet (XUV) radiation emitted during TDEs can cause hydrodynamic escape and instigate biological damage. By taking the appropriate variables into consideration, such as the efficiency of atmospheric escape and distance from the Galactic center, we demonstrate that the impact of TDEs on galactic habitability is comparable to that of Active Galactic Nuclei. In particular, we show that planets within distances of ∼0.1-1 kpc could lose Earth-like atmospheres over the age of the Earth, and that some of them might be subject to biological damage once every ≳ 104 yrs. We conclude by highlighting potential ramifications of TDEs and argue that they should be factored into future analyses of inner galactic habitability.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of tidal disruption events on galactic habitability

Pacetti

Balbi

Lingam

et al. 2020

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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“…The impact rate may be hazardous for large fractions of the stars in extreme CSSs and red nuggets. This is interesting because Stojković et al (2019) proposed that high-metallicity dwarf galaxies including M32 are well-suited for ETI evolution.…”

Section: Order-of-magnitude Estimate Of Characteristic Impact Ratementioning

confidence: 98%

Life in Elliptical Galaxies: Hot Spheroids, Fast Stars, Deadly Comets?

Lacki

2021

Preprint

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Elliptical galaxies have dynamically hot (σ 1D ∼ 100-300 km s −1 ) populations of stars, and presumably, smaller objects like comets. Because interstellar minor bodies are moving much faster, they hit planets harder and more often than in the local Galaxy. I estimate the rates for Chicxulub-scale impacts on an Earth-size planet in elliptical galaxies as a potential habitability constraint on intelligent life. Around most stars in a normal elliptical galaxy, these planets receive only ∼ 0.01-0.1 Gyr −1 , although hazardous rates may be common in certain compact early-type galaxies. About ∼ 10% of the stellar mass is in a region where the rate is > 10 Gyr −1 , large enough to dominate the mass extinction rate. This suggests that elliptical galaxies have an exclusion zone several hundred parsecs in radius around their centers for the evolution of intelligent life.

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“…We have seen that the new wave of thinking, inaugurated by the work of Dayal et al (2015), implies that the early-type galaxies are indeed the most habitable kind of galaxies. There are tantalizing indications that this applies to some dwarfs as well (Stojković et al 2019). All in all, it does seem that the morphological type per se is a poor indicator of the habitability of any particular galaxy.…”

Section: Morphological Type and Other Derived Criteriamentioning

confidence: 99%

Habitability of galaxies and the application of merger trees in astrobiology

2019

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Galaxies represent the main form of organization of matter in our universe. Therefore, they are of obvious interest for the new multidisciplinary field of astrobiology. In particular, to study habitability of galaxies represents one of the main emerging challenges of theoretical and numerical astrobiology. Its theoretical underpinnings are, however, often confused and vague. Here we present a systematic attempt to list and categorize major causal factors playing a role in emergent habitability of galaxies. Furthermore, we argue that the methodology of cosmological merger trees is particularly useful in delineating what are systematic and lawful astrobiological properties of galaxies at present epoch vs. those which are product of historical contingency and, in particular, interaction with wider extragalactic environment. Employing merger trees extracted from cosmological N-body simulations as a new and promising research method for astrobiology has been pioneered by Stanway et al. (2018). We analyse the general issue of applicability of merger trees and present preliminary results on a set of trees extracted from the Illustris Project. In a sense, this approach is directly complementary to using large-scale cosmological simulations to study habitable zones of individual galaxies with high mass/spatial resolution; taken together they usher a new era of synergy and synthesis between cosmology and astrobiology.

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Galactic habitability re-examined: indications of bimodality

Cited by 17 publications

References 85 publications

The impact of tidal disruption events on galactic habitability

The impact of tidal disruption events on galactic habitability

Life in Elliptical Galaxies: Hot Spheroids, Fast Stars, Deadly Comets?

Habitability of galaxies and the application of merger trees in astrobiology

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