Desert planet
{{short description|Rocky planet whose surface is dominated by desert}}
File:Tharsis and Valles Marineris - Mars Orbiter Mission (30055660701).png, an example of a cold desert planet, seen by the Mars Orbiter Mission space probe]]
A desert planet, also known as a dry planet, an arid planet, or a dune planet, is a type of terrestrial planet that is arid at the surface level.
Deserts can be cold or hot, and even retain water, like Antarctica or the Sahara on Earth, but desert planets are planet wide arid.
Mars is a prominent example of a (cold) desert planet with a tenuous atmosphere.{{Cite web |title=Mars |url=https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/mars/overview |access-date=2023-05-01 |website=NASA Solar System Exploration}}
But also other arid planets with atmospheres more as well as less dense have been identified as desert planets, like Venus and Mercury{{cite web | title=Top Five Mercury mysteries that BepiColombo will solve | website=ESA | url=https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/BepiColombo/Top_Five_Mercury_mysteries_that_BepiColombo_will_solve | access-date=April 30, 2025}}.
History
A 2011 study suggested that not only are life-sustaining desert planets possible, but that they might be more common than Earth-like planets.{{cite news |last=Choi |first=Charles Q. |date=September 2, 2011 |title=Alien Life More Likely on Dune Planets |work=Astrobiology Magazine |url=http://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/alien-life-more-likely-on-dune-planets/ |access-date=June 12, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714225000/http://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/alien-life-more-likely-on-dune-planets/ |archive-date=14 July 2014 |url-status=usurped}} The study found that, when modeled, desert planets had a much larger habitable zone than ocean planets. The same study also speculated that Venus may have once been a habitable desert planet as recently as 1 billion years ago. It is also predicted that Earth will become a desert planet within a billion years due to the Sun's increasing luminosity.
A study conducted in 2013 concluded that hot desert planets without runaway greenhouse effect can exist in 0.5 AU around Sun-like stars. In that study, it was concluded that a minimum humidity of 1% is needed to wash off carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but too much water can act as a greenhouse gas itself. Higher atmospheric pressures increase the range in which the water can remain liquid.{{cite journal|arxiv=1304.3714|title=Towards the Minimum Inner Edge Distance of the Habitable Zone |author1=Andras Zsom |author2=Sara Seager |author3=Julien de Wit |author4=Vlada Stamenkovic |date=September 4, 2013 |doi=10.1088/0004-637X/778/2/109 |volume=778 |issue=2 |journal=The Astrophysical Journal |page=109 |bibcode=2013ApJ...778..109Z|s2cid=27805994 }}
== Science fiction ==
The concept has become a common setting in science fiction,{{Cite book|last=Touponce |first=William F. |year=1988 |title=Frank Herbert|chapter=Intellectual Background |location=Boston|publisher=Twayne Publishers imprint, G. K. Hall & Co|page=119 |isbn=978-0-8057-7514-3}} appearing as early as the 1956 film Forbidden Planet and Frank Herbert's 1965 novel Dune.{{cite web|url=http://www.culturevulture.net/Movies4/ForbiddenPlanet.htm |first=Les|last=Wright|title=Forbidden Planet (1956)|publisher=Culturevulture.net (Internet Archive) |access-date=May 7, 2006 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060507194241/http://www.culturevulture.net/Movies4/ForbiddenPlanet.htm |archive-date=May 7, 2006}}{{cite web|url=http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue42/classic.html |title=Classic Sci-Fi Reviews: Dune|first=Tamara I.|last=Hladik|publisher=SciFi.com|access-date=April 20, 2008 |archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20080420150907/http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue42/classic.html |archive-date = April 20, 2008}}{{Cite magazine |first=Jon |last=Michaud |url=http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/07/dune-endures.html |title=Dune Endures |magazine=The New Yorker |date=July 12, 2013 |access-date=November 27, 2013}} The environment of the desert planet Arrakis (also known as Dune) in the Dune franchise drew inspiration from the Middle East, particularly the Arabian Peninsula and Persian Gulf, as well as Mexico.{{cite book |last1=Lynch |first1=Tom |last2=Glotfelty |first2=Cheryll |last3=Armbruster |first3=Karla |title=The Bioregional Imagination: Literature, Ecology, and Place |date=2012 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |isbn=9780820343679 |page=230 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=flt4Uea3oOcC&pg=PA230}} Dune in turn inspired the desert planets which prominently appear in the Star Wars franchise,{{cite web|work=D. A. Houdek |title=Star Wars is Dune |url=http://www.dahoudek.com/pages/starwarsdune.htm |access-date=October 1, 2006}} including the planets Tatooine, Geonosis, and Jakku.
See also
References
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Category:Science fiction themes