The exoplanet is located 300 light years from Earth.
It is the first Earth-sized planet to be found in a habitable zone and orbiting a star in the Milky Way. An exoplanet, or exoplanet, says NASA, “is a planet outside our solar system that usually orbits another star in our galaxy.”
NASA discovered Kepler-1649c in April 2020 and explained that “a team of transatlantic scientists, using reanalyzed data from NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, discovered an Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting in its star’s habitable zone, the area around a star where a rocky planet it may contain liquid water “.
How was it discovered? Previous research with a computer algorithm misidentified it, which is why researchers who looked at Kepler’s data looked at the signature again and recognized it as a planet. Of all the exoplanets found by Kepler, this distant world, located 300 light years from Earth, it is the closest to the size and estimated temperature of the Earth.
This exoplanet revealed in 2020 is only 1.06 times larger than our planet. Additionally, the amount of starlight it receives from its host star is 75% of the amount of light Earth receives from our Sun, which means that the exoplanet’s temperature could also be similar to that of our planet. But unlike Earth, it orbits a red dwarf. Although none have been observed in this system, this type of star is known for stellar bursts that can make a planet’s environment difficult for any potential life.
The Kelpler telescope will continue its orbit around the Sun, always at a distance from the Earth.
“This intriguing and distant world gives us even more hope that a second Earth is among the stars., waiting to be found, “said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s science mission directorate in Washington in 2020.
There is still much unknown about Kepler-1649c, including its atmosphere, which could affect the planet’s temperature. Current calculations of the size of the planet have significant margins for error, as do all values in astronomy when studying such distant objects. But based on what is known, Kepler-1649c is particularly intriguing to scientists looking for worlds with potentially habitable conditions.
Other exoplanets are estimated to be closer to Earth in size, such as TRAPPIST-1f and, according to some calculations, Teegarden c. Others may be closer to Earth in terms of temperature, such as TRAPPIST-1d and TOI 700d. but noor there is another exoplanet considered closer to Earth in these two values which is also in the habitable zone of your plant.
This would be the new planet according to NASA.
“Of all the mislabeled planets we have recovered, this is particularly exciting, not only because it is in the habitable zone and the size of the Earth, but how it might interact with this neighboring planet, “said Andrew Vanderburg, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin and first author of the paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters in 2020. , we would have lost. ”
Kepler-1649c orbits so close to its small red dwarf star that one year on Kepler-1649c equals just 19.5 Earth days.. The system has another rocky planet about the same size, but orbits the star about half the distance from Kepler-1649c, similar to how Venus orbits our Sun about half the distance from Earth. Red dwarf stars are among the most common in the galaxy, meaning planets like this one may be more common than previously thought.
Kepler-1649c orbits so close to its small red dwarf star that one year on Kepler-1649c equals just 19.5 Earth days. (AFP)
False positives
Previously, scientists on the Kepler mission developed an algorithm called Robovetter to help classify the massive amounts of data produced by the Kepler spacecraft, which is run by NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. Kepler searched for planets using the transit method, observing the stars, looking for dips in brightness as the planets passed in front of their host stars.
Most of the time, those falls come from phenomena other than planets, ranging from natural changes in a star’s brightness to other cosmic objects passing by, making it appear as if a planet is there when it isn’t. Robovetter’s job was to distinguish 12% of the dives that were real planets. Those signatures that Robovetter determined were from other sources were labeled as “false positives,” the term for a test result that is incorrectly classified as positive.
Astronomers knew that the algorithm would make mistakes and would have to be double checked.
With a huge amount of difficult signals, astronomers knew the algorithm would make mistakes and need double checking, a perfect job for Kepler’s False Positive Task Force. That team examines Robovetter’s work, reviewing all false positives to make sure they are indeed bugs and not exoplanets, ensuring fewer potential discoveries are missed. As a result, Robovetter had mislabeled Kepler-1649c.
possible third planet
Kepler-1649c is not only one of the best matches for Earth in terms of the size and energy it receives from its star, but it offers a whole new insight into its natal system. For every nine times the outer planet in the system orbits the host star, the inner planet orbits almost exactly four times. The fact that their orbits coincide in such a stable relationship indicates that the system itself is extremely stable and is likely to survive for a long time.
Near-perfect period ratios are often caused by a phenomenon called orbital resonance, but a ratio of nine to four is relatively unique among planetary systems. Typically, resonances take the form of ratios such as two to one or three to two. Although not confirmed, the rarity of this relationship could suggest the presence of a planet in between with which the inner and outer planets rotate in sync, creating a resonant pair of three to two.
The team searched for evidence of such a mysterious third planet, to no avail. However, this could be due to the planet being too small to see or to an orbital tilt that makes it impossible to find it using Kepler’s transit method.
Source: Clarin
