Universe Sandbox

Universe Sandbox

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Tidally Habitable Exomoon
   
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13 Aug, 2021 @ 2:05pm
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Tidally Habitable Exomoon

Description
You can have habitable worlds that lie outside of the habitable zone of their stars!

Here is an example of a habitable exomoon. It orbits in such a way around its parent exoplanet that it can sustain habitable temperatures purely through tidal heating!

Here, I imagine a world like a more watery Io. It would be highly volcanic, and full of sulfur. Due to the distance from its star as well as the low output of visible light said star produces (it is an orange dwarf), photosynthesis would not be a particularly efficient process on this world. However, the abundant sulfur might allow for strange, chemosynthesis-based flora to evolve in the place of typical light-feeding vegetation! This vegetation would be unrecognisably strange both in form and biology, and would sustain equally alien ecosystems...