Discovered the double of the Earth around the nearest star. Could have liquid water – Rai News

A ‘milestone’ for mankind. Thousands of alien worlds, no one so close

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25 August 2016 is’ an epochal discovery, that of an Earth-like planet orbiting the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, “is the outer planet closest to us ever discovered solar system, is truly a milestone for humanity, “said the astronomer Isabella Pagano, observatory. to make the discovery of Proxima b a truly unique event is” having proved that the nearest star to us has a planet in the area where liquid water can exist, and even where the temperature could be ideal for the existence of life form “. The discovery, continued the researcher, is the crowning of a ‘fighter’ really very long, lasting 16 years and conducted by the Earth, the telescope European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile, La Silla.

Those conducted by ESO telescope from 16 years ago have been “pioneering research,” said Isabella Pagano, but not sufficiently confirmed.

That changed with the installation the Harps instrument (High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher), which allowed to find all the confirmations. The same tool was also installed on the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo in the Canary Islands, to observe the sky of the Northern Hemisphere.

“The planet Proxima b has a mass similar to that of Earth, 1.5 times more, but we do not know what size have, “he still said the expert. It could, for example, “have a greater or lesser volume of the Earth, depending on its density.”

What we do know with certainty is that it is a small planet in the so-called ‘habitable zone’, ie the distance ‘right’ from the star to have liquid water. But it is also true, found pagan, that “Proxima Centauri is an active star with solar flares of energy loads. For this we are not able to say if indeed the planet is habitable.”

The conditions because it is theoretically exist, but to learn more you should observe the planet as it transits against the disk of its star: “in so many have tried to do it, but without success,” said Pagano.

transit makes it possible to acquire much information about the planet, including the possibility that it could have liquid water. To these questions, he concluded the astronomer, will give an answer the next generation of space telescopes.

Thousands of alien worlds, no one so close
Distant only four light years, Proxima b is the alien world ever closer to us, its more than 3,000 identified so far outside the solar system. Now the ‘hunt’ to identify the most similar to Earth and suitable to host life becomes even more intense, thanks to increasingly sophisticated instruments installed on Earth and launched into space.

will follow the path traced by the most great ‘hunter of planets’, the Kepler space telescope NASA: despite being given several times for dead and close to retirement, the tool launched in March 2009 continues to amaze giving away mountains of valuable data, that just last June convinced NASA to refinance the project to ensure the other two years.

to continue his work in space will be the satellite Tess (Transiting Exoplanet Survey satellite), that NASA will launch in 2017 to explore the whole once the celestial looking for transiting planets in front of 200,000 among the closest stars and bright.

Even Europe will be in the front row with his super telescope E-ELT (European Extremely Large telescope): high as a 30-story building, it will be made at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile by the Society of Italian companies ACe (with Astaldi, Cimolai and Eie group as a subcontractor), so as to become operational within a decade becoming the most powerful optical and infrared telescopes.

The hunt for ET It will soon feature the private also with the San Francisco Rush project, which aims to launch a fleet of spacecraft with solar sails laser pushed toward the star Alpha Centauri, ‘on the planet neighbor’ Proxima b just discovered. The project, proposed by the Russian billionaire Yuri Milner (who is ready to fund it with $ 100 million), is supported by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and astrophysicist Stephen Hawking: the launch is scheduled for 2069.