Evolution of the Habitable Zone and Search for Life Around Giant Stars Part II: Feasibility with Darwin/TPF

摘要

We discuss the evolution of the habitable zone around low mass and intermediate mass stars as they evolve off the main sequence. This work shows that this new class of stars should be included in the search for life because if planets could be found in their habitable zones, and these planets showed evidence for life, it is possible to empirically determine a lower limit to the timescale for the formation of life This time scale is not well determined from the study of the Earth (or planets around main sequence stars), as life formation initially occurred during a period of heavy bombardment from comets and asteroids during the formation of the solar system. Our initial research was recently published (Lopez, Schneider, & Danchi 2005) We will describe our work in progress, in which we perform calculations and simulations aiming to demonstrate the potential of TPF and Darwin for the search and characterization of planets around evolved stars