Scientific Article for Students

Have you read His Dark Materials or seen its movie adaptation The Golden Compass? In the imaginary world created by the author Philip Pullman, dust was the most important thing – the material which connected it to ours. 

It turns out that even in real life, dust is important to worlds outside of Earth! Especially if we are trying to find out if they are habitable. We learned that dust can cool the hot surface and warm the climate of a planet, making it more suitable for life. On the other hand, larger amounts of dust can make it hard to look for such planets. And actually, if a planet does host life, dust might hide the signs of it!

Share this Article

About this Article

Reading Level
Scientific Topic
Key Words
NGSS Standards
AP Environmental Science Topics
IB Biology Topics
Scientific Methods
Type of Figure
Location of Research
Scientist Affiliation
Included Resources
+ Introductory videos on exoplanets and tidal locking + Article translated into Bulgarian + Link to NASA’s exoplanet exploration activity
Publication Date
July 2020
Astronomers looking for habitable planets outside the Solar System discovered that dust might play an important role.
Check the PDF above.

Looking for something else?

Subscribe to our FREE newsletter: