InfoSearched
Published -
- September 9, 2019
- 7:22 am
The universe is too big for us to be the only ones in it.
It’s just a matter of knowing where to look, and scientists from NASA’s TESS program might have stumbled across the next clue in this galactic scavenger hunt. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite was launched in April of 2019 with the aim of locating planets in orbit around nearby stars.
One of these stars is the comparatively small GEE-JAY 357. It’s about 31 light-years from Earth. It’s one of the closest to Earth! Thanks to TESS, NASA astronomers discovered a planet orbiting this distant star. And in fact, it’s one of the few whose atmosphere can be studied by scientists, once they determine if it has one!
Astronomers have just discovered a new exoplanet, known as a super Earth, which is potentially habitable in our cosmic neighborhood. This new discovery is a milestone in the search for extraterrestrial life and offers fascinating new insights into the nature of our universe.
The super Earth, which is located approximately 4.2 light years away from us, orbits the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri. Given its distance, it is the closest known exoplanet to our solar system, making it a prime target for astronomers looking to understand rocky, Earth-like planets. The discovery of this potentially habitable exoplanet was made thanks to a team of astronomers using the HARPS spectrograph installed on the 3.6-meter telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile.
The new exoplanet has a mass approximately 1.17 that of Earth, helps cement the idea that exoplanets can be at least as close to their stars as Earth is to our Sun and yet maintain a potentially habitable environment. It is estimated that the Proxima Centauri b is located at a distance from its star that allows it to have surface temperatures favorable to the existence of liquid water. This is a key condition for any potentially habitable planet, as water is considered one of the most essential ingredients for life to exist.
The discovery of this super Earth is an exciting development for the scientific community, which has been on the hunt for planets that could potentially host alien life for many years. While we still do not know for certain if the planet indeed harbors life, the discovery of a potentially habitable exoplanet so close to Earth is a significant step forward in our search for extraterrestrial life. It opens up new possibilities for future scientific research and exploration.
Moreover, the discovery opens up the possibilities for answering other pressing questions in the field of astrobiology. Scientists have long been interested in the conditions that give rise to life, and the discovery of a potentially habitable exoplanet brings us one step closer to understanding what those conditions might be. It also has significant implications for how we think about the possibility of life on other planets.
In summary, the discovery of a potentially habitable super Earth so close to Earth is a significant advancement in our understanding of the cosmos. While we still have much to learn about this fascinating new exoplanet, we are one step closer to answering some of the most profound questions in the field of astrobiology. The potential for finding and studying life on other planets is now closer than ever before, and this new discovery should be celebrated as a landmark moment in the history of astronomy.
