The Kepler space mission
has exposed the exoplanet, closet to the Earthlike identified so far. Dub
Kepler 10b, the planet is unstable (solid) smaller than those found, since the
diameter is the same to just 1.4 times the Earth, while its mass is 4.6 times
that of Earth.
In attendance can be no
illusions, however, about the possibility of life existing in it, because
although Kepler 10b orbits a star (Kepler 10) very similar to our Sun, its
distance to it is twenty times less than separating the sun Mercury.
This means
that the average temperature on the surface of that exoplanet is higher than
1600 degrees Celsius. And its speed is dizzying as they complete a lap around
its star every 0.84 days.
The discovery,
announced the recent past by the U.S. Space Agency at the American Astronomical
Society, held this week in Seattle (Washington), and collected on its website,
will be published in a comprehensive report by the prestigious Astrophysical
Journal.
Exterior
the "habitable zone"
Kepler 10b is clearly
outside of what scientists call the "habitable zone" where it would
be possible to develop some form of life as we know it. Y consists essentially
of a mixture of lava rocks and, since at that temperature elements such as iron
are liquid. Not only is just next door, since it is in the constellation
Cygnus, about 560 light years away. The discovery of Kepler probe means in fact
that 560 years ago an exoplanet of the aforementioned characteristics orbited
the star Kepler 10. The logic is still there, since that period of time is
almost negligible in the scale of the universe.
It has been discovered
by the "transit method", ie by measuring the fluctuations experienced
by the brightness of its star, Kepler 10, both in intensity and time, every
time the planet passes between it and the detector probe.
No
one have see an exoplanet
It's that thrill of the
stars for discovering planets around them. No one has seen or will see an
exoplanet. The bodies, including celestial, can only be seen by the light they
emit or reflect. And at that distance there is no telescope that captures. Your
simple search is equivalent to finding a flea from migrating by the beam of the
headlights.
But the tools and
models developed by astrophysicists have reached such a level of reliability
that can not only find those planets without seeing them, but also determine
its mass and position, and therefore its composition and the movements they
describe.
The
crazy contest for living
The Kepler space
mission, NASA, competes in the search for exoplanets with the mission Corot,
European Space Agency, and ESA. And it's a mad race for life in the universe.
As tough and competitive as that kept Amundsen and Scott to conquer the South
Pole, or Livingston and Stanley to find the sources of the Nile The ESA
announced in May 2009 the discovery of an exoplanet, the Corot 7b, presented as
the smallest found so far, its diameter is 1.7 times that of Earth, possibly
rocky, and with a temperature close to two thousand degrees. Life is impossible.
In late September,
astronomers from the Universities of Carolina and Santa Cruz presented the
discovery of the exoplanet Gliese 581g, then announced as "the most similar
to Earth ... which could have liquid water.” Nothing has been found on him, and
the scientific establishment still debated whether it is a mistake. Whether not
there.
Be
active possible
Until today there are
more than 550 exoplanets discovered since its existence was confirmed in 1995.
The vast majority of them are gas giants Jupiter and Saturn type. Too cold. Too
hot. All of them, outside the "habitable zone". Impossible the
existence of water. But the simple law of averages suggests that among the
billions of billions of billions of stars in the universe must be many, why not
millions, of planets inhabited by some form of life ... Or maybe not. Kepler
and Corot missions still looking.
No comments:
Post a Comment