{"id":14236,"date":"2017-04-19T13:00:11","date_gmt":"2017-04-19T17:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=14236"},"modified":"2017-04-18T23:19:33","modified_gmt":"2017-04-19T03:19:33","slug":"eso-new-exoplanet-is-good-candidate-in-search-for-signs-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=14236","title":{"rendered":"ESO: New exoplanet is good candidate in search for signs of life"},"content":{"rendered":"

The latest report from\u00a0ESO<\/a>\u00a0(European Southern Observatory):<\/p>\n

Newly Discovered Exoplanet May be Best Candidate
\nin Search for Signs of Life<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

An exoplanet orbiting a red dwarf star 40 light-years from Earth may be the new holder of the title \u201cbest place to look for signs of life beyond the Solar System\u201d. Using ESO\u2019s HARPS instrument at La Silla, and other telescopes around the world, an international team of astronomers discovered a \u201csuper-Earth\u201d orbiting in the habitable zone around the faint star LHS 1140. This world is a little larger and much more massive than the Earth and has likely retained most of its atmosphere. This, along with the fact that it passes in front of its parent stars as it orbits, makes it one of the most exciting future targets for atmospheric studies. The results will appear in the 20 April 2017 issue of the journal Nature.<\/p>\n

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This artist\u2019s impression shows the exoplanet LHS 1140b, which orbits a red dwarf star 40 light-years from Earth and may be the new holder of the title \u201cbest place to look for signs of life beyond the Solar System\u201d. Using ESO\u2019s HARPS instrument at La Silla, and other telescopes around the world, an international team of astronomers discovered this super-Earth orbiting in the habitable zone around the faint star LHS 1140. This world is a little larger and much more massive than the Earth and has likely retained most of its atmosphere. [Larger version<\/a>.]<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>The newly discovered super-Earth<\/a> LHS 1140b orbits in the habitable zone<\/a> around a faint red dwarf<\/a> star, named LHS 1140, in the constellation of Cetus<\/a> (The Sea Monster) [1]<\/a>. Red dwarfs are much smaller and cooler than the Sun and, although LHS 1140b is ten times closer to its star than the Earth is to the Sun, it only receives about half as much sunlight from its star as the Earth and lies in the middle of the habitable zone. The orbit is seen almost edge-on from Earth and as the exoplanet passes in front of the star once per orbit it blocks a little of its light every 25 days.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the most exciting exoplanet I\u2019ve seen in the past decade<\/em>,\u201d said lead author Jason Dittmann of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics<\/a> (Cambridge, USA). \u201cWe could hardly hope for a better target to perform one of the biggest quests in science \u2014 searching for evidence of life beyond Earth.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

“The present conditions of the red dwarf are particularly favourable \u2014 LHS 1140 spins more slowly and emits less high-energy radiation than other similar low-mass stars,” <\/em>explains team member Nicola Astudillo-Defru\u00a0from Geneva Observatory, Switzerland [2]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For life as we know it to exist, a planet must have liquid surface water and retain an atmosphere. When red dwarf stars are young, they are known to emit radiation that can be damaging for the atmospheres of the planets that orbit them. In this case, the planet’s large size means that a magma ocean could have existed on its surface for millions of years. This seething ocean of lava could feed steam into the atmosphere long after the star has calmed to its current, steady glow, replenishing the planet with water.<\/p>\n