Three habitable planets detected close to home - 20minutes.fr

astronomical scale, it is almost next door. Researchers at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) have identified a system located 22 light years from our own, including three “super-Earths” orbiting in the habitable zone of their star. Translation: these three planets are closer to the Earth mass (between 2.7 to 3.8 times) and they are in the right temperature range to host liquid water

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current instruments, astronomers unfortunately not have the means to determine their exact composition and are reduced to speculation. According to them, these three neighbors are “probably rock” but they do not know if they have a atmosphere. To do this, it will take direct observations via James Webb Space Telescope, which will, hopefully, launched in 2018.

A little star

So far, only one habitable planet was detected around Gliese 667. It is a red dwarf, a least three less bulky than our Sun, which emits a tiny fraction of its energy star. This means that the habitable zone of the system is much closer to the star: the three planets go around in less than two months, and due to a particular configuration, one side is always light and other still in the dark.

This is not the first time that astronomers discover a habitable planet around such a star. But with three of a sudden, they feel that there is probably more habitable planets than stars in our galaxy.

Still far

A 22 light years away, Gliese 667 is one of the closest to ours that could be conducive to life systems. If Proxima Centauri is only 4 light-years from Earth, the planet detected earlier this year has hellish conditions. It is possible that astronomers find her sisters.

Whether 4 or 22 light years away, send probes tracking however, is not the order of the day: With current technology, it would take more than 20,000 years to reach its destination. The next frontier is still distant.

Philippe Berry