Researchers discover a planet that can support life – SWR3

British researchers Royal Astronomical Society They discovered for the first time an exoplanet in the orbit of the dying sun that could harbor life: the satellite appears to be orbiting in the middle of the so-called habitable, i.e. “habitable”revolves around its star, Researchers announced on Friday.

The planet and the sun are at the right distance

By habitable zone, astronomers mean an orbit not so far from the Sun that water freezes, nor so close that it evaporates. Liquid water is a basic requirement for life.

According to the paper’s lead author, Jay Farihi of University College London, this observation is entirely new. It is a planet where water and life can exist.

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Researchers calculate: There must be a planet

Where: the term “note” It should not be taken here literally. What the scientists actually noticed is this: About 117 light-years from Earth, the dying sun — the so-called — is moving across the Milky Way. “white dwarf”. Scientific name: WD1054-226.

Farihi and his colleagues found that 65 objects the size of our moon’s orbit orbit this sun. The research team calculated that because they were constantly moving the same distance from each other, there must be something greater in their gravity tying their structure together – the unseen planet. Here the researchers presented the formation of stellar planets in a graph:

“You can’t think of such a thing.”

‘It was a real shock’Farihi says. “The movements are very precise – you can’t make up things like that.”

“white dwarfs” rather arise “Small” About the size of our sun. At the end of their lives, they don’t turn into black holes like much larger suns. When its internal fuel runs out, it swells first “Red Giants” employment. Then they shrink into “white dwarfs” and then never get much larger than Earth, for example.

Then its glossiness decreases significantly. According to Farhi, it is still warm on the said planet because it orbits about 60 times closer to its “white dwarf” than we do with our Sun.

The planet is actually around the corner

117 light years away, of course. However, by cosmological standards, the planet is considered part of our immediate neighbours. For comparison: the Milky Way alone, our main UFO-shaped galaxy, which in itself is just a small point in the universe, has completely different dimensions: its diameter is about 100,000 light-years. It is about 2,000 light-years thick.

Now the British want to search for other known “white dwarfs” to see if the planets orbit them at the correct distance. This is usually the case in astronomy, says Farihi: “Once you spot something, it usually means it’s very common.”