Foreigners could call a planet about 282 million years away from home, scientists say.
GJ 3378b is an exoplanet – a planet not within our solar system – that is more than twice the size of Earth.
It’s 25 light years away, so it would take you 141 million years on a bullet train to get there, according to NASA’s Exoplanet Catalog.
Astronomers at the University of CaliforniaIrvine, have found that GJ 3378b’s atmosphere may be just the right thickness to support life.
Paul Robertson, associate professor of astronomy at UC Irvine and lead author, said: ‘This is exciting.
“It’s one of our closest cosmic neighbors. 25 light-years sounds like a long way, but the Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years across, so in that respect it’s our nearest neighbor.’
GJ 3378b is ‘exciting’ because it is located in the so-called ‘Goldilocks zone’ that Earth is also at – not too hot, not too cold, so liquid water could be on it, according to findings published in The Astrophysical Journal.
The rocky world is nestled in a red dwarf star, much fainter and cooler than the Sun, with a year that is only 21.5 days.
“This super-Earth gets about 90% of the radiation from its host star that Earth does from its sun, so it’s right in the sweet spot,” Robertson added.
If it were even slightly away from this spot, called the cosmic coastline, the star’s radiation would strip away the planet’s atmosphere.
This was the case for Mars, for example, which experts suspect may have once had one comfortable, earth-like atmosphere before the Sun stripped him.
Robertson said: “If you shrunk the Earth down to the size of an apple, its atmosphere would be almost as thick as the skin of the apple.
“That’s enough to maintain the kinds of surface pressures where you can have liquid water. It’s enough that there will be breathable air, and it provides perhaps some protection from the harsh radiation environment of space.’
Robertson stressed that they don’t know for sure whether GJ 3378b has an atmosphere, but it is a promising candidate for otherworldly life.
They made the discovery using the Habitable Zone Planet Finder on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope in Texas and the NEID Spectrometer on the WIYN Telescope in Arizona.
Could life be anywhere else?
So far, Earth remains the only planet in the universe where life is known to exist – yet more than 6000 exoplanets have been discovered so far.
Figuring out whether one of these distant planets has a life-friendly atmosphere is easier than you might think—well, sort of.
As an exoplanet passes in front of its host star, its atmosphere ignites. The swirling gases above change the color of the starlight beamed down to Earth.
They try to see if there is any biographies — a signal of life — within the atmosphere, like oxygen or other gases produced only by living organisms, said Lisa Kaltenegger, director of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University. subway.
“The signs of life are written in the light of a planet – if you know how to read it,” said Kaltenegger.
Kaltenegger and her team compiled a list in March of 45 ‘Earth-like’ planets that could be home to extraterrestrial life. Maybe.
What makes a planet habitable? “Being a rock and having liquid water on the surface is a great start,” she said.
“Is there life out there is an open question, but that’s why it’s so exciting to live in this golden age of exploration, where we can find out.”
For now, Earth’s inhabitants remain alone in the cosmos. But this being our only definition of life could be a problem, Kaltenegger asked.
We’re really only looking for the kind of oxygen-breathing, water-guzzling life that can survive on Earth.
“Life on other worlds could be very different from Earth,” Kaltenegger said, adding: “Unless the planet is much hotter or much colder (if the water evaporates or freezes completely), then you need a different solvent for life.
“We hope that the methane and ethane lakes on Saturn’s moon Titan may also support life, but we don’t know that yet.
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