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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

2FYMTPP Pacific Ring of Fire, illustration

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…

Article amended on 12 December 2024

We have corrected the Fahrenheit temperature difference between the day and night side of LHS 3844 b

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