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SPACE


EXOPLANET PLATE TECTONICS: A NEW FRONTIER IN THE HUNT FOR ALIEN LIFE

Plate tectonics seems to be crucial for life on Earth, but we’ve never confirmed
that it happens on other worlds - that may be about to change

By Elise Cutts

2 December 2024

Facebook / Meta Twitter / X icon Linkedin Reddit Email

Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library/Alamy



There is something strange about Earth. A few billion years ago, a process
started here that we have never seen anywhere else. It completely reshaped the
planet’s surface and its carbon cycle, sculpted new landscapes and has kept our
home temperate and habitable for billions of years.

That process is plate tectonics, in which Earth continuously subsumes and
reforms the slabs of its rocky outer shell. It is thought to be inextricably
linked to habitability and perhaps an essential prerequisite for life itself.
Without it, our lakes and rivers might have frozen or evaporated, the oceans
could have been starved of nutrients and Earth’s climate would probably have
veered into unlivable territory long ago. Life would have been in for a rough
ride.



Read more

Is there an ancient black hole at the edge of the solar system?



At least, that’s the idea. But it is tough to know whether plate tectonics is
really crucial to Earth’s verdant ecology, given that we have nothing to compare
it with. We know of no other planet that exhibits plate tectonics: among the
four rocky planets in our solar system, Earth is the only one to recycle its
crust in this way, and we haven’t spotted definitive signs of it beyond our
solar system either.

Until recently, this was more or less where the story ended. But now, with the
help of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), scientists are beginning to
explore the geology of rocky worlds beyond our solar system. Finding one with
plate tectonics will be a huge ask. But if we succeed, it could be the key to…

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