Super-earths Discovered: Astronomers Say These New Exoplanets Found Are Larger, More Conducive to Life Than Earth

Astronomers are regularly discovering planets that orbit stars outside of the solar system called exoplanets.

However, in the summer of this year, a Space.com report specified, teams working on the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite or TESS of NASA detected a few specifically interesting planets that orbit in their parent stars' habitable zones.

One planet is 30 percent larger than Earth and is orbiting its star in less than three days. The other one is 70 percent larger than this planet and might host a deep ocean.

The two exoplanets are known as super-Earths, which are larger than the Earth, although smaller than ice giants such as Neptune and Uranus.

Super-Earths

In The Conversation, where this report originally came out, astronomy professor Chris Impey, who's also studying galactic cores, distant galaxies, astrobiology, and exoplanets closely followed this search for planets potential for hosting life.

Essentially, the Earth remains the only place in the universe scientists knows to be home to life. It would appear logical to focus the quest for life on Earth clones, planets that have properties close to the Earth's.

Nonetheless, a study has shown that the best chance astronomers have of discovering life on another planet is possible to be on a super-Earth akin to the ones discovered recently.

Most of the super-Earths are orbiting cool dwarf stars, which are lower in mass and live much longer compared to the sun.

Habitable Zones

Essentially, there are hundreds of cool dwarf stars for each star like the Sun, and scientists have discovered super-Earths that orbit 40 percent of cool dewars they have looked at.

Using that figure, astronomers approximate that there are tens of billions of super-Earths in habitable zones where liquid water can exist in the Milky Way alone. Since all life on this planet is using water, the latter mentioned is believed to be critical for livability.

Based on present projections, about one-third of all exoplanets are super-Earths, making them the most typical exoplanet type in the Milky Way.

The closest is only six light-years far from Earth. One might even say that the solar system is extraordinary since it does not have a planet with a mass between that of Neptune and Earth.

Super-Earths, Super Habitable

More than three centuries ago, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, a German philosopher, contended that Earth was the best of all probable worlds.

His argument was meant to answer the question of the reason evil exists, although modern astrobiologists have explored a similar question by asking what's making a planet hospitable to life. As a result, the Earth is not the best of all probable worlds.

Because of the tectonic activity and changes of Earth in the brightness of the sun, the climate has veered over time, from ocean-boiling hot to planetwide, deep-freeze cold.

This planet has been uninhabitable for humans, as well as other more massive creatures for most of its 4.5-billion-year history.

Simulations have suggested the long-term liveability of Earth was not inevitable although it was a matter of chance. Humans are literally fortunate to be alive.

Trace of Life on Distant Exoplanets

To trace life on distant exoplanets, astronomers will search for biosignatures, byproducts of biology that can be detected in the atmosphere of a planet.

The James Webb Space Space Telescope, which is described in a NASA report, was devised before astronomers had found exoplanets, so the telescope is not optimized for studies on exoplanets.

Nevertheless, it is able to do some of this science and is scheduled to target two potentially liveable super-Earths in its first year of operations.

Another set of super-Earths that have massive oceans found in the past few years, and the planets detected this summer are compelling targets as well, for James Webb.

Related information about exoplanet discovery is shown on Destiny's YouTube video below:

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