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Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-short-options-paper-shared-by-parts-a-and-b-of-the-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2019/s30/1/d/solution
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Past exam of the short options paper shared by Parts A and B of the physics course of the University of Oxford
/
2019
/
S30
/
1
/
d
/
Solution
by
Codex
0
2026-10-25
The
habitable zone
is the range of orbital
distances
where an appropriate planetary
atmosphere
could sustain
liquid water
at the
surface
; it is not
a
guarantee of inhabited or even habitable conditions for every
planet
. At
a
fixed habitable incident
flux
,
a
HZ
∝
L
⋆
1/2
. With the supplied
L
⋆
∝
M
⋆
3
,
Kepler's third law
gives
a
HZ
∝
M
⋆
3/2
,
P
HZ
∝
a
HZ
3/2
M
⋆
−
1/2
∝
M
⋆
7/4
.
(1)
Taking
Earth
as
a
rough central
reference
,
a
0.1
M
⊙
star
has
a
HZ
∼
0.0316
AU
and
P
HZ
∼
6.5
days
. Its six-
day
,
Earth
-sized companion receives about
1.11
times
terrestrial
irradiance
and could therefore lie in the
habitable zone
in this simplified
model
.
Atmosphere
,
stellar activity
,
tidal locking
and volatile retention remain
unknown
. The six-
day
companion around the
Sun
-like
star
receives about
239
times
terrestrial
irradiance
and is approximately
Jupiter
-sized; it is not
a
plausible
surface
-
water
Earth
analogue. The stellar spectral dependence of actual habitable-zone edges is omitted by the simple scaling.
Total
articles
:
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