.png)
An international team of astronomers has discovered a planet outside our system that has the same size as Earth and which temperatures allow water to exist. And when there is water somewhere , there is life!
It is through the Kepler telescope launched in 1994 that astronomers have spotted this planet. This finding reinforces the probability of finding planets sisters of the Earth in our galaxy, the Milky Way. The work of scientists were published Thursday in the journal Science. Elisa Quintana, astronomer at the SETI Institute Ames Research Center NASA who led the research said:
"This is the first exoplanet size of the Earth found in the living area from another star . What makes this discovery particularly interesting is the fact that named Kepler- 186F is land size orbiting a red dwarf called smaller and cooler than the Sun, in the temperate area where water may star liquid being. "
The twin planet is in a star system 490 light-years from the Sun (about 5 million billion kilometers) with five planets all close to Earth in size but only Kepler-186F is in the habitable zone. It orbits 130 days and receive a third of the light energy that the Earth receives from the sun. Paul Hertz, director of the Astrophysics Division of the space agency said in a press conference that:
"The future NASA mission as the James Webb telescope (successor to Hubble in 2018 and will be more powerful) can discover the closest rocky exoplanets and determine their composition and the nature of their atmosphere."
Source : The Verge
0 comments:
Post a Comment