Astronomers May Have Found the First Evidence for Tectonic Activity on an Exoplanet

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Astronomers May Have Found The First Evidence For Tectonic Activity On An Exoplanet:

On Earth, the heat generated from the radioactive decay of elements in Earth's mantle drives convection currents, pushing and dragging large plates of Earth's crust around. When the plates collide, mountains form, and parts of Earth's crust are recycled into the mantle. When the plates are pushed apart, the partially molten mantle rises upward to fill the gap. Plate tectonics is an essential part of the cycle that brings material from the planet's interior to the surface and the atmosphere, and then transports it back beneath the Earth's crust. Tectonics thus has a vital influence on the energy and matter transfer that ultimately makes Earth habitable.

Until now, researchers have found no evidence of global tectonic activity on planets outside our solar system. A team of researchers led by Tobias Meier from the Center for Space and Habitability (CSH) at the University of Bern and with the participation of ETH Zurich, the University of Oxford, and the National Center of Competence in Research NCCR PlanetS has now found evidence of the flow patterns inside a planet, located 45 light-years from Earth: LHS 3844b. Their results were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

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