"Exo-Earths" of Binary Star Systems: Favor a Livable Climate and Evolution of Complex Life
“They’re out there,” goes the common quip about extraterrestrials. It would seem more likely to be true in light of a 2019 study by astrophysicists at the Georgia Institute of Technology who modeled the evolution of axial tilts of Earth-like analogs in different star systems, including binary stars. Earth’s axial tilt varies only slightly, an important ingredient for climate stability that favors the evolution of complex life. Of all their simulated Earth analogs with axial tilts similarly steady to Earth’s, the astrophysicists found that 87% of them were in binary star systems.