Potentially habitable Earth-like worlds in our backyard
Astronomers have discovered two potentially habitable worlds orbiting a red dwarf star in our cosmic backyard. Extrasolar planets or “exoplanets” are only 16 light-years away and have masses similar to our planet.
They are located in the ‘living area‘ of its star, GJ 1002, is defined as the shell around a star that is neither too hot nor too cold to support liquid water, a vital ingredient for life.
“Nature seems determined to show us that Earth-like planets are very common,” study author Alejandro Suárez Mascareño of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) said in a statement (opens in a new tab). “With these two we now know of seven in planetary systems very close to the Sun.”
Related: Astronomers discover strange twin alien planets could be water worlds
Because liquid water is essential for life to exist, planets in the habitable zones are the focus of our search for life elsewhere in the universe, although just being in a habitable area is no guarantee of being able to live. For example, in the solar system both Venus and March they are in the sun’s habitable zone, but neither could currently support life.
Because GJ 1002 is a relatively cool red dwarf, its habitable zone, and these two new exoplanets, are much closer to it than to Earth. the sun. The innermost planet, designated GJ 1002b, takes about 10 days to orbit the star while the outer planet, GJ 1002c, completes one orbit in 21 days.
“GJ 1002 is a red dwarf star, with only one-eighth the mass of the sun,” study co-author and IAC researcher Vera María Passegger said in the statement. “It’s a pretty cool, faint star. That means its habitable zone is very close to the star.”
The proximity of the two planets to Earth means they could be excellent targets for astronomers aiming to study the atmospheres of Earth-like worlds outside. the solar system.
The exoplanets were discovered as a result of a collaboration between the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) ESPRESSO instrument (Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectroscopic Observations) installed at the Very large telescope (VLT) in the Atacama Desert region of northern Chile, and CARMENES (high-resolution search for M dwarfs with exo-Earths with optical and near-infrared Échelle spectrographs) at the Calar Alto Observatory in Andalusia, south of ‘Spain.
The two instruments observed the planets’ parent star during two separate periods, CARMENES studied GJ 1002 between 2017 and 2019, while ESPRESSO collected data on the red dwarf between 2019 and 2021.
CARMENES’ sensitivity over a wide range of near-infrared wavelengths makes it well-suited to detect variations in the velocities of stars that may indicate orbiting planets.
“Due to its low temperature, the visible light of GJ 1002 is too weak to measure its velocity variations with most spectrographs,” explained a researcher from the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC), Ignasi Ribas
While ESPRESSO and the light-gathering power of the VLT allowed astronomers to make observations of the system that would not have been possible with any other Earth-based telescope, it was the combination of these two powerful instruments that gave results that in isolation have struggled to achieve them and bring them to discovery exoplanets.
“Either of the two groups would have had a lot of difficulties if they had approached this work independently”, concluded Suárez Mascareño. “Together we have been able to reach much further than we would have done acting independently.”
Astronomers now hope to use the ANDES spectrograph in the Extremely large telescope under construction in the atmosphere of GJ 1002c.
The team’s research is published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. (opens in a new tab)
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