The new zone of life in our galaxy - Republic

Source: European Southern Observatory

class=”author”> Christopher Smith 26-06-2013

Three planets that may harbor life, scientists have discovered working at the European Southern Observatory in Chile.

Globes orbit around the star Gliese 667C in the constellation Scorpius, the distance of 22 light years from Earth. Gliese 667C is called. red dwarf star three times less massive and a hundred times less bright than our Sun.

discovery was made in 2011 by Harps telescope installed at La Silla in Chile. Team led by Guillem Anglada-Escude from Germany’s University of Göttingen and Mikko Tuomi of the UK’s University of Hertfordshire. After the tests carried out in the Laboratory of Astrophysics in Grenoble, France, has been officially confirmed by the ESO.

around Gliese 667 planets circling seven, but only three recently discovered there are at such a distance from the star, the temperature on the surface helps keep water in a liquid state.

– The discovery is remarkable, observed for the first time three potential habitat life around a single star. In our solar system there are only two such planets – Earth and Mars, the Mars water is gone – he said, commenting on this achievement prof. Rory Bames the University of Washington.

According to Prof.

. Vincent Coude, astronomer of the Observatory of Paris-Meudon, such a discovery was inevitable, astrophysicists have long suspected that red dwarfs should have this kind of planetary systems, but there was no evidence. Now, researchers have it.

– Do not present the findings in a sensational tone, discovered planets are located in the zone of potential life, but that does not mean that their life develops. Can there be like on Mars. To life, in addition to water, spreading an atmosphere of warmth on the planet’s surface, which gives it a star – explains Professor. Rory Bames the University of Washington.

According to researchers at the University of Auckland in New Zealand in the field of view telescope is 100 billion rocky like Earth globes. Many of them can be life habitats. Try to be observed by telescopes scholars such as Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory, ALMA – the Atacama Large Millimeter Array – the world’s largest radio telescope in the Chilean Andes. In 2022, Europe will search EELT – the world’s largest optical telescope with a mirror 39 meters in diameter