Journal of Astrobiology & Outreach

Abstract

Exploring Biogenic Dispersion Inside Star Clusters with System Dynamics Modeling

Javier Burgos-Salcedo* and Diana C. Sierra

The discovery of a growing number of exoplanets and even extrasolar systems supports the scientific consensus that it is possible to find other signs of life in the universe. The present work proposes for the first time, an explicit mechanism inspired by the dynamics of biological dispersion, widely used in ecology and epidemiology, to study the dispersion of biogenic units, interpreted as complex organic molecules, between rocky or water exoplanets (habitats) located inside star clusters. The results of the dynamic simulation suggest that for clusters with populations lower than 4 M?/ly3 it is not possible to obtain biogenic worlds after 5 Gyr. Above this population size, biogenic dispersion seems to follow a power law, the larger the density of worlds lesser will be the impact rate () value to obtain at least one viable biogenic Carrier habitat after 5 Gyr. Finally, when we investigate scenarios by varying β, a well-defined set of density intervals can be defined in accordance to its characteristic β value, suggesting that biogenic dispersion has a behavior of “minimal biogenic effective” events by interval i.e. once this dose has been achieved, doesn’t matter if additional biogenic impact events occur on the habitat. 

Published Date: 2021-09-06;