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Oceans are vital to Earth-like life evolving on other planets, a new study has found.

Computer simulations of an alien world similar to Earth revealed the vital role the oceans play in moderating climate.

Without large expanses of water on a planet's surface, seasonal temperature rises would be too rapid and weather too extreme to provide a comfortable home for life, scientists discovered.

Oceans are vital to Earth-like life evolving on other planets, a study has found. Simulations of an alien world similar to Earth revealed the vital role the oceans play in moderating climate (artist's impression pictured)

Even a planet in the habitable zone of its star - the orbital region where temperatures are mild enough to permit liquid surface water - is likely to be sterile and lifeless without oceans.

In our own solar system, barren Mars has no oceans despite being in the sun's habitable zone, the researchers point out. As a result, its air temperature swings over a range of 100°C.

Professor David Stevens, who led the team from the University of East Anglia's School of Maths, said: 'The number of planets being discovered outside our solar system is rapidly increasing. 

Without large expanses of water on a planet's surface, seasonal temperature rises would be too rapid and weather too extreme to provide a comfortable home for life, scientists discovered. Pictured is an artist's impression of an alien world with oceans

'This research will help answer whether or not these planets could sustain alien life.

'We know that many planets are completely uninhabitable because they are either too close or too far from their sun. 

'A planet's habitable zone is based on its distance from the sun and temperatures at which it is possible for the planet to have liquid water.

'But until now, most habitability models have neglected the impact of oceans on climate.

'Oceans have an immense capacity to control climate. They are beneficial because they cause the surface temperature to respond very slowly to seasonal changes in solar heating.

Kepler has found many siginificant planet including Kepler 296-f (pictured), a so-called 'super Earth' twice the size of our planet but in the habitable zone of its star, meaning it could have liquid water on its surface

'And they help ensure that temperature swings across a planet are kept to tolerable levels.

'We found that heat transported by oceans would have a major impact on the temperature distribution across a planet, and would potentially allow a greater area of a planet to be habitable.'

Factoring oceans into climate models was vital to knowing whether a planet could develop and sustain life, he added.

The research is published in the latest edition of the journal Astrobiology.

Scientists have so far confirmed the existence of 1,739 planets outside our solar system, according to latest information from the Nasa Exoplanet Archive. 

There are thousands more unconfirmed 'candidates', and a total of 452 multiple planet systems have also been logged.

WE WILL FIND ALIEN LIFE IN 20 YEARS, CLAIMS NASA

One hundred million worlds in our galaxy are able to host alien life, according to a 'conservative' prediction by Nasa.

And the space agency claims that we will be able to find that life within the next 20 years, with a high chance it will be outside our solar system.

During a public talk earlier this month, the space agency outlined a roadmap to search for life in the universe using a number of current and future telescopes.

'Do we believe there is life beyond Earth?' said former astronaut and Nasa Administrator Charles Bolden.

'I would venture to say that most of my colleagues here today say it is improbable that in the limitless vastness of the universe we humans stand alone.'

Mars and a number of moons in our solar system have been the focus of the search for alien life for decades.

But the Nasa scientists on the panel spoke exclusively about looking for signs of life on planets around other stars outside our solar system.

'Sometime in the near future, people will be able to point to a star and say, "that star has a planet like Earth",' said Sara Seager, professor of planetary science and physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts.