Well hey!
Astronomers have just spotted a new planet approximately 22.5 light-years away from us!
Now, if you zoom in closer, closer -- see?
It already has a McDonalds!
How do they do that?
Well no, that’s not true.
The most exciting thing about this new planet?
It has three suns!
And researchers say that it might be our best shot at encountering other life forms!
So, are we going to meet our space neighbors any time soon?
Well, before I data dump on you all about this new planet, I have to mention the way
it was found.
All thanks to TESS – well no, not my girlfriend Tess from 3rd grade.
This TESS stands for the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite: a NASA mission that’s
been in search of planets orbiting the brightest stars of our galaxy since April 2018.
Within its lifetime, the satellite is supposed to monitor 200,000 stars, looking for any
exoplanets, from gas giants to small-sized rocky worlds.
By the way, Tess -- from 3rd grade—how do you like me now?
On Bright Side – pretty cool huh?
I keep talking about exoplanets, but what exactly are they?
Well, it's literally any planet situated outside of our Solar System and orbiting its own star.
Yep, it’s that simple!
Unfortunately, it's quite hard to spot exoplanets from Earth, because the brightness of their
stars effectively hides the planets from sight.
Then again, scientists have already discovered more than 4,000 exoplanets, and aren't going
to stop.
If you want to find an exoplanet of your own, look for the stars that seem "wobbly."
The chances are high that a planet circles this star and occasionally blocks its light.
But back to TESS, um the satellite -- astronomers hope that during the first two years of the
satellite's operation, it’ll come across 10,000 unknown worlds.
So far, TESS has already located several planets, including the one with three suns.
This new world has the catchy name of LTT 1445Ab.
All the stars you see in the sky of this planet are red dwarfs in the second half of their
lives, but the planet orbits only one of the three.
This star looks like a glowing red disc from the surface of LTT 14…etc.
As for the other two, they’re much further from the planet and seem tiny and dark.
An unprepared observer would probably take them for two red, sinister eyes in the sky.
Um, is that you, Sauron?
Analyzing the data received from TESS, the satellite, astronomers concluded that the
newly discovered world is boiling-hot on the surface, with temperatures rising as high
as 320 degrees F. So, if you ever decide to visit this planet, you'd probably want to
avoid trying to get a tan.
Also, the planet is rocky, really rocky -- more than 8 times the mass of Earth, and a third
bigger than our home planet.
Oh, and it orbits its parent star much faster than Earth goes around the Sun - it makes
one full circle every 5 days.
I should also mention here that Tess from 3rd grade was also really hot.. ah hem.
Back to our story -- what excited researchers the most, is the fact that LTT 14… look,
I’ll just call it “Rocky” from here on.
Rocky seems to have an atmosphere!
And that means that somewhere over there, there may be extraterrestrial life!
What's more, the chances are high that soon, scientists will be able to confirm the existence
of the atmosphere on the planet.
Rocky is located relatively close to our planet - just 22.5 light-years away, which is literally
next door in space terms.
And since the planet in question passes between Earth and its stars, astronomers can catch
a glimpse of the gases that might surround the planet with the help of the telescopes
based on Earth.
Unfortunately, it's not possible to do right now.
And even though TESS the Satellite is great at discovering new planets, it can't say for
sure whether ET and his friends live there.
That's why, after making sure that LTT…I mean “Rocky” DOES have an atmosphere,
scientists will have to send a deep space probe to the planet to investigate.
And still, astronomers are full of hope.
Although the temperature on the planet seems way too hot, there's still a chance that something
(or somebody) has adapted to these nightmarish conditions.
It’s all good and well, and very promising, but it got me wondering what our Earth would
look like if there weren’t one, but two, suns in the sky.
Remember the planet of Tatooine, from the "Star Wars" movies, the one that was Luke
Skywalker's home planet?
In September 2011, astronomers discovered a world that eerily resembled Tatooine.
The planet, dubbed Kepler-16b, consists of half rock and ice and half gas, and orbits
two closely located stars.
So, how about an experiment?
Let's replace Kepler-16b with Earth and see how our planet fares, circling two suns at
a time!
First, the climate on the Tatooine-like planet is quite chilly, even though it's closer to
its parent stars than Earth is to the Sun.
However, there's no mystery here: Kepler-16b's stars are less bright than our Sun.
That's why the temperature on the planet rarely rises higher than minus 100 degrees F. But
under the same stellar conditions, Earth would be even frostier!
Our planet would be freezing, because it would be situated farther away from the stars than
Kepler-16b.
That means that all the water on Earth would turn into ice, and it's unlikely that life
would be able to develop in this glacial desert.
Astronomers say that in this case, the only living beings on Earth might be some advanced
life forms that came from somewhere else and managed to keep themselves warm after relocating
to our planet.
Then, since Earth would be orbiting two stars, the year would become a bit longer.
The thing is that the combined mass of the two stars Kepler-16b circles is 10% less than
the mass of our Sun.
As a result, Earth would move on its orbit more slowly, because the gravitational pull
of the stars would be weaker.
On the other hand, if Earth still had the Moon, and its orbit was the same, the length
of a day on the planet wouldn't differ from the one we have these days.
Now, the two new parent stars of our planet would be about 7 million miles apart.
That means that they would orbit each other once every 10 days or so.
Also, each of them would rotate in a 10-day period, which is a bit faster than the rotation
speed of our Sun.
Anyway, if there were people on the two-suns Earth, they would be able to observe a brand-new
baffling phenomenon - an eclipse of the sun caused by another sun!
The stars would pass in front of each other once every 5 days, and every time, the eclipse
would last for about 6 hours!
Interestingly, during the peak of the eclipse, our planet would get from 30 to 40% less energy
than normal.
That's why the days of the eclipse would be even chillier than the rest of the time on
the planet.
But the most amazing difference would be how the sky would look from the surface of the
planet.
The two suns wouldn't look very big, but they would be differently colored, and so close
together they would almost look like they were touching.
And think of all those breathtaking sunsets: astronomers are sure that they would be different
every single day!
By the way, have you heard that we might already live in a solar system with two stars?
Although this theory is far from being widely accepted, it may explain some oddities in
the Earth's history, such as mass extinctions that happen too regularly for my liking.
So, here's the idea: our Sun may have a companion, a theoretical white or brown dwarf star called
Nemesis.
Good name.
This star can influence the orbits of celestial objects in the outer Solar System and send
them on a collision course with Earth, causing mass extinctions every now and then.
For example, there were speculations that Nemesis could even affect the Oort Cloud,
a hypothetical region on the outskirts of the Solar System, filled with icy rocks.
Rocky!
Nemesis could probably kick some of these chunks out of their home cloud and send them
hurling toward Earth.
Wham-bam - a new mass extinction.
Right now, astronomers can't find any evidence that the dwarf star is accompanying our Sun
somewhere up there.
But according to a 2017 study, this star could exist in the very, very ancient past.
Admittedly, the existence of this sun, Nemesis would shed light (unintentional pun) on some
large-scale planetary catastrophes, but don't forget that so far, it's just a theory.
Hey!
Do you have any other ideas on how several suns instead of one would change life on Earth?
Maybe harder to throw shade at someone…Let me know down in the comments!
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But – hey -- Tess, from 3rd grade -- don't go anywhere just yet!
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