Skip to main content

Super-Earth Size Planet Able to Support Life Found 111 Lightyears From Earth

Post from: sputniknews.com

A team of Canadian and European astronomers has discovered that a distant exoplanet known as K2-18b may be a scaled up version of Earth, capable of holding liquid water and thus having the potential to host alien life.

The new research, based on data from the European Southern Observatory (ESO), waspublished in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. 

Astronomers found that the potential life-supporting planet, which orbits the red-dwarf star K2-18, also has a neighbor planet called K2-18c, although it is probably too hot to be habitable. Located in the Leo constellation, about 111 lightyears away from Earth, the Super-Earth planet was first discovered in 2015. Found orbiting the dwarf star's theoretical habitable zone, the planet became a prime candidate for researchers looking for planets that can theoretically support life.

University of Montreal researcher and study lead author Ryan Cloutier said of the team's findings that "being able to measure the mass and density of K2-18b was tremendous, but to discover a new exoplanet was lucky and equally exciting."

Alex Boersma

K2-18b and its neighbour, newly discovered K2-18c, orbit the red-dwarf star k2-18 locataed 111 light years away in the constellation Leo

The study was made possible thanks to data obtained from the ESO's 3.6 m telescope at the La Silla Observatory in a remote region of Chile. The High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) planet-finding spectrograph installed on the telescope measures the radial velocities of stars, which are affected by any nearby planets, with the highest accuracy available, enabling it to detect even the smallest of planets.

On top of that, the radial velocity measurements discovered by HARPS allowed researchers to calculate planets' mass, enabling them to measure their bulk density, and thus whether they are gaseous, rocky, whether they contain water, etc.

The next step, according to Cloutier, will be to probe the atmosphere for the presence of water with the help of the James Webb Space Telescope, the NASA/ESA/CSA telescope expected to be completed and launched in two years' time. Study co-author Rene Doyon says that K2-18b will be a prime candidate for the new telescope's atmospheric studies of distant planets once it comes online.

Of course, an actual mission to the distant solar system is out of the question for now. Scientists estimate that current technology enables our spacecraft to travel just one light year every 21,000 years. That means that a satellite or manned mission traveling to K2-18b would take over 2.3 million years to get there.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The court system during colonialism in Tanzania.

Introduction. Pre-colonial Period Administration of justice during this time depended heavily on the social economic and political organization of the society in Tanganyika. Two systems of administration of justice namely; The Centralized and the Non-Centralized systems could be identified at the time. The Centralized Systems was applicable to societies with chiefs who played both roles of adjudicators and that of governors. In the Non-Centralized systems the entire community took part in the adjudication of disputes. However in both systems there were no formalization of procedure in adjudication, the customs of the respective societies prevailed in the process. Colonial Period The German Colonial Period. The Land currently covering Tanzania Main Land, was then included in what was called the German East Africa, it was subjected to the German Colonial Rule from 1886 up to the end of the First Ward War, 1918. During this Germany Colonial Rule the Administration of Justi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ndege ya Ukraine yaanguka Iran ikiwa na abiria 180, Abiria wote wafariki

Ndege ya Ukraine aina ya Boeing-737 iliyokuwa na abiria 180 imeanguka Iran, kwa mujibu wa vyombo vya habari nchini humo. Watoa huduma wa msalaba mwekundu wa Iran wanasema kuwa hakuna dalili yeyote kama kuna mtu aliyepona katika ajali hiyo. Ndege hiyo inayomilikiwa na shirika la kimataifa la ndege la Ukraine ilianguka muda mfupi baada ya kuanza safari katika uwanja wa ndege wa Imam Khomeini mjini Tehran. Ripoti za awali zinadai kuwa ndege hiyo ilikuwa safarini kuelekea mji mkuu wa Ukraine, Kyiv.  Haijabainika ikiwa ajali hiyo ina uhusiano wowote na mzozo wa Iran-na Marekani. Kikosi cha uokoaji tayari kimetumwa katika eneo la tukio karibu na uwanja wa ndege, eneo ambalo ndege lilianguka. Credit: GettyImage " Ndege imeshika moto na tumetuma kikosi huko ... ," kiongozi wa huduma za dharura Pirhossein Koulivand,ameviambia vyombo vya habari ambapo Reuters imeripoti. Je tutegemee machafuko zaidi kutokea? Endelea kuwa pamoja nasi bega kwa bega, mshirikishe na mwenz...
Post a Comment
Read more