!The discovery of a “giant Earth” suitable for life outside the solar system
The Japanese Subaru Telescope, NAOJ, located in Hawaii, succeeded in discovering an exoplanet orbiting at a close and safe distance from its star and in a habitable place.
In the field of a dim red dwarf star, scientists found the planet, which they called Ross 508, only 36.5 light-years away, but the star was so faint that it could not be seen with the naked eye. Its nature is mostly terrestrial or rocky rather than gaseous.
Scientists confirm that Ross 508 may not be suitable for the form of life as we know it, but the discovery is the first of its kind to demonstrate the effectiveness of modern technologies used in the search for life among dim stars and small planets.
Scientists have so far relied on a comparison with Earth to determine habitable planets, as it must be at a close distance from the star to allow the presence of liquid water, not gaseous, and it must be relatively small, while this theory also applies to Mars, which is devoid of life except That scientists have not found a more effective model for comparison and research.
So far, scientists have resorted to two methods to detect distant stars. The first method is the transit technique, which is what NASA's TESS telescope relies on. It searches for regular dips in starlight, which would indicate the presence of an object regularly orbiting around it.
And by calculating the depth of the light crossing, scientists can determine the mass of the body, the greater its size, the greater the light curve from it, and thus it will be easier to determine its location and size.
As for the second and most effective method adopted by the Japanese telescope, it is the radiation velocity technique, and this technique depends on the fact that any two bodies, if they are locked in an orbit, do not revolve around one another, but rather revolve around a mutual center of gravity, meaning that the rotation of the planets around the star causes it to oscillate. A little bit and this happens to the sun too.
Through this technique, scientists succeeded in discovering small exoplanets with wider orbits, and by identifying the shifts in wavelengths from blue to red that result from the movement of planets towards Earth, they were able to identify the location of these planets and the extent of their suitability for life.
Scientists described the planet Ross 508 by saying that it is much smaller and lighter than the sun, that its mass is 18% of the mass of the sun, and it revolves around its star every 10.75 days and that it is one of the smallest and lightest planets that has been discovered through radioactive velocity.
Source :websites