Astronomers have doubted that planets like Near Planet b could be life-threatening hotbeds. Because these planets are very close to their host stars.
The “neighbor” is not like the sun.
If we look at the southern sky, we can see the “stars” facing south of the Cross. One of those points is Alpha Centauri – the closest star and planetary system to the Earth’s solar system. It is said that this distance is difficult to distinguish with the naked eye.
In addition, a third member of the Alpha Centauri system is Proxima Centauri (abbreviated Proxima Cen) – the cathedral, which surrounds two central stars in a wide orbit. It is the closest “neighbor” to the Sun, with a distance of 4.2 light years.
Maybe one of the planets in Near Planet is suitable for life. Recently, however, scientists have discovered signs of severe space weather conditions near Tinh. This could be a sign that an orbiting planet could be blown up by dangerous particles and a magnetic field.
The Sun is a relatively unremarkable yellow dwarf that is the heart of the solar system, carrying the only known life in the universe: Earth. However, Near Tinh is completely different. It is a red dwarf star, only 15% of the Sun’s diameter and has a surface temperature of 3000 K (degrees Kelvin), much cooler than the Sun – 6000K.
Because near-Tinh is relatively cool, the “Goldilocks” – the habitable area of its orbit around it is about 1/20 the distance from the Sun. Scientists are often interested in planets in the Goldilocks region of a star. Because water is necessary for life.
Near Planet has at least two planets: Near Planet b – a “super-Earth” stone located between the Goldilocks region of the near planet and the sub-planet c. It is a “Neptune” located further.
For years, astronomers doubted that planets like Near Planet b could be life-threatening hotbeds. Because these planets are very close to their host stars. Many red dwarfs frequently create powerful explosions.
These are bursts of intense radiation traveling through space. If planets like Near Planet b do not have protective characteristics such as thick atmospheres or strong magnetic fields, they will be exposed to dangerous levels of radiation.
Another important factor in determining how hospitable it is to humans is the red dwarf’s “space weather”. While light rays are associated with intense bursts of light, space weather events mean: The star’s magnetic field and charged particles can interact directly with the planet.
The most energetic weather events in space are called coronary mass (or CME). This is a significant release of plasma and the accompanying magnetic field from the solar corona. These large flares escape a star’s atmosphere and travel through space at speeds of millions of kilometers per hour.
If space weather conditions are severe enough, the planet’s atmosphere could be washed away. And its magnetic field can be repelled, causing the surface exposed to the radiation to explode.
CME has been discovered around the Sun since the 1970s. However, the detection of space weather events around distant stars is considered much more difficult.
CME on the sun generates radio interference. By detecting similar signs in other stars, experts can indirectly determine the cluster’s CME.
Strange signal
On April 29, 2019, the Parkes radio telescope in Australia began recording radio signals from the Sun’s nearest neighbor – Near Tinh. In total, the telescope collected 26 hours of data. But when the astronomers analyzed in more detail, they noticed something strange – a single pure sound at 982.02 MHz appears five times in the data.
The signal was first reported last year in The Guardian, a UK newspaper. The article raised the possibility that the signal could be evidence of an advanced civilization in the nearby planet.
However, the researchers ruled out that possibility and said that at least the signal had to reappear before any conclusions could be drawn. And, the signal was not detected again, although experts searched for it several times.
Now, Amir Siraj and Abraham Loeb of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have calculated the probability that the signal originated from a Near Planet civilization, even without further observations. They call the Breakthrough Listen Candidate 1 (BLC1) signal.
This signal is interesting because narrowband sounds do not normally occur in nature, but rather tend to create wideband noise. But BLC1 has all the characteristics of signs rooted in technological civilization.
So far, the source of the signal is probably Earth. Most of these signals are quickly attributed to radio interference from passing cell phones, microwaves, cars, planes and satellites, etc.
But this group of signal analysis has yet to find a clear origin. And they say the signal frequency will change slightly over time. This is a phenomenon consistent with signals from objects in orbit or in orbit.
