A team of researchers have discovered two planets that look like Earth and are very close to the solar system. They are in the ideal position for the water to remain liquid, allowing life to multiply.
Zing led Space.com said that these two planets orbit a star called “Teegarden”, located 12.5 light years from Earth, and named Teegarden B and Teegarden C.
“These two planets are like planets in our solar system,” said lead researcher Mathias Zechmeister – researcher at the Institute for Astrophysics at the University of Göttingen, Germany.
“They are only slightly heavier than Earth, located in areas where water exists in liquid form and where humans can live,” he added.
This observation is the result of the project which research CARMENES. CARMENES (Calar Alto High Resolution Search for M Dwarves with Exoearths with Near Infrared Spectrograph and Optical Scale – Search for habitable planets in M-rank star systems – the most common star system in the universe).
Newly found planets orbit their parent star with cycles of 5 and 11 days (compared to 365 days per cycle on Earth). In other words, a year on these stars lasted only 5 and 11 days, respectively.
Teegarden b and Teegarden c: candidates for the “Earth 2.0” version
“Planets Teegarden b and c are the first planets to be detected using the radial velocity method around such an extremely cool dwarf,” Soha said, citing the team.
“Both planets have minimum masses close to Earth. They are predicted to have the same radius as Earth and to be made up of rocks, partly iron or water.
After observation, the research comes to a conclusion: Teegarden b is the innermost planet; it has a 60% chance of having a temperate surface environment, with temperatures between 0 ° and 50 ° C, or even 28 ° C (habitable). Meanwhile, Teegarden c is farther from its parent star Teegarden and has a surface temperature similar to that of Mars, around -47 ° C (quite severe for humans).
With masses similar to Earth and the relative distance of solar radiation (parent star Teegarden), both planets top the list of viable exoplanets. In fact, Teegarden b has the highest Earth Similarity Index (ESI).
Although this conclusion does not mean that one of the two planets could actually be inhabited by humans in the future, but according to astronomers, it is a very promising discovery. Speaking to The Guardian, Mr. Mathias Zechmeister said that if these planets have atmospheres, life can reproduce and proliferate completely.
With this discovery, Teegarden is the 24th closest star system to the solar system, and its recently discovered planets are one of the great candidates for future research. Their vital potential is more exciting than ever for scientists.
