Solar systems with life-bearing planets may be rare if they are dependent on the presence of asteroid¹（小行星） belts of just the right mass, according to a study by Rebecca Martin, a NASA Sagan Fellow from the University of Colorado in Boulder², and astronomer³ Mario Livio of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md. They suggest that the size and location of an asteroid belt, shaped by the evolution of the Sun's protoplanetary disk and by the gravitational influence of a nearby giant Jupiter-like planet, may determine whether complex life will evolve on an Earth-like planet.

 

This might sound surprising because asteroids⁴ are considered a nuisance（讨厌的人） due to their potential to impact Earth and trigger mass extinctions. But an emerging view proposes that asteroid collisions with planets may provide a boost to the birth and evolution of complex life.

 

Asteroids may have delivered water and organic compounds to the early Earth. According to the theory of punctuated⁵ equilibrium⁶（点断平衡说）, occasional asteroid impacts might accelerate the rate of biological evolution by disrupting a planet's environment to the point where species must try new adaptation strategies.

 

The astronomers⁷ based their conclusion on an analysis of theoretical models and archival observations of extrasolar Jupiter-sized planets and debris⁸ disks around young stars. "Our study shows that only a tiny fraction of planetary systems observed to date seem to have giant planets in the right location to produce an asteroid belt of the appropriate size, offering the potential for life on a nearby rocky planet," said Martin, the study's lead author. "Our study suggests that our solar system may be rather special."

 

The findings will appear today in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical⁹ Society: Letters (published by Oxford¹⁰ University Press).

 

Martin and Livio suggest that the location of an asteroid belt relative to a Jupiter-like planet is not an accident. The asteroid belt in our solar system, located between Mars and Jupiter, is a region of millions of space rocks that sits near the "snow line," which marks the border of a cold region where volatile¹¹ material such as water ice are far enough from the Sun to remain intact. At the time when the giant planets in our solar system were forming, the region just beyond the snow line contained a dense¹² mix of ices, rock, and metals that provided enough material to build giant planets like Jupiter.

 

When Jupiter formed just beyond the snow line, its powerful gravity prevented nearby material inside its orbit from coalescing¹³（聚结的） and building planets. Instead, Jupiter's influence caused the material to collide and break apart. These fragmented rocks settled into an asteroid belt around the Sun.

 

"To have such ideal conditions you need a giant planet like Jupiter that is just outside the asteroid belt [and] that migrated a little bit, but not through the belt," Livio explained. "If a large planet like Jupiter migrates through the belt, it would scatter¹⁴ the material. If, on the other hand, a large planet did not migrate（移动） at all, that, too, is not good because the asteroid belt would be too massive. There would be so much bombardment（轰炸，炮击） from asteroids that life may never evolve."

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