One step closer to finding aliens? New planets that could support life uncovered
ASTRONOMERS may be one step closer to proving aliens exist after discovering 85 possible planets outside our solar system – which could potentially support life.
Experts studied NASA data to find dozens of new planets similar in size to Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune after sifting through a sample of 1.4 million stars.
2
Of the 85 exoplanets – planets orbiting stars other than the Sun – 60 are brand new discoveries with temperatures closer to those in our own solar system.
Astronomers believe the climate is potentially cool enough to sustain life.
The extraordinary discovery was discovered using data from a NASA mission called TESS (Transitioning Exoplanet Survey Satellite).
Scientists have found that the new planets are much cooler than most discovered during the original TESS mission, which launched in April 2018.
As a result, they have a 'habitable zone', meaning the exoplanets are in regions far enough away from their host stars and could be the right temperature to support life.
They were found at a distance of 70 trillion (70,000,000,000,000) miles to 15 quintillion (15,000,000,000,000,000,000) miles from Earth.
It is very exciting to find these planets, and to know that many of them are in the right temperature zone to support life.
Professor Daniel Bayliss
The new study was an international collaboration led by PhD student Faith Hawthorn at the University of Warwick.
Using TESS, Faith and her colleagues were able to observe dips in star brightness, known as 'transits', caused by objects passing in front of them.
This allows scientists to identify exoplanets and determine their sizes.
Faith said: 'The space satellite takes the brightness from these stars and watches how the planets passing in front of them cause the brightness to decrease.
'We can look for that and find planets this way.
“I hope that through my research we can not only learn about all the types of planets that are actually in the Milky Way, but also that we can learn something about how our own solar system came to be and why the Earth itself is so special.
“And it would also be fun for humanity to one day make an excursion to an exoplanet.”
What is an exoplanet?
This is what you need to know…
- An exoplanet is a planet outside our solar system that orbits its own star, just as Earth orbits the sun
- They are very difficult to see with telescopes because they are often hidden by the brightness of their star
- NASA sent the Kepler Space Telescope into space with the aim of finding Earth-sized exoplanets that could potentially support life
- More than 5,500 exoplanets have been discovered to date and more missions are planned to find even more exoplanets
- A good way to spot an exoplanet is to look for 'wobbly' stars, as a disturbance in starlight can indicate a planet is orbiting it and blocking the light intermittently.
- Expo planets are common in the universe and the more we discover that they are Earth-like, the closer we get to whether Earth is the only life-bearing planet.
Normally at least three transits must be seen to discover an exoplanet using TESS to determine how long it takes for them to orbit their star.
However, this new study focused on systems that only executed twice.
This results in discoveries of exoplanets at longer orbital periods, which allows the discovery of exoplanets at lower temperatures.
The 85 exoplanet candidates take between 20 and 700 days to orbit their host stars, while most exoplanets observed by TESS have orbital periods of 3 to 10 days.
Researchers were keen to focus their observations on exoplanets in this region to study them at temperatures closer to our own planets in the solar system.
At this stage it has yet to be confirmed that the bodies are exoplanets, but the researchers hope that this will be achieved with future observations.
Faith added: “We ran an initial algorithm that looked for transits on a sample of 1.4 million stars.
'After a rigorous research process, we have narrowed this down to just 85 systems that appear to host exoplanets that pass only twice in the dataset.
“There is plenty of room for further research into these exoplanets – to learn more about their exact orbital periods, whether or not they have moons and what exactly they are made of.”
Professor Daniel Bayliss, also involved in the research, added: “It is very exciting to find these planets, and to know that many of them are in the right temperature zone to support life.
“The project was a real team effort and involved researchers at different stages of their careers; it's wonderful to see it come to light.
“Along with the lead researcher, doctoral student Faith Hawthorn, student Kaylen Smith Darnbrook helped us analyze the data during a summer project.
“It is a great achievement for a student to have their research work published, so it was a proud moment for all of us.
“In keeping with the collaborative spirit of the TESS mission, we have also made our discoveries public so that astronomers around the world can study these unique exoplanets in more detail.
'We hope this will stimulate further research into these fascinating exoplanets.'
Dr. Sam Gill, second author of the study, commented: “Detecting exoplanets from just two transits is a smart way to find longer-period exoplanets in transit studies.
“This allows us to find planets that are much cooler than we can find with traditional transit searches.”
The study was published today (Wednesday) in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS).
Discover more about science
Want to know more about the weird and wonderful world of science? From the moon to the human body, we have your back…