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Astronomers recently discovered two giant terrestrial planets only 100 light-years from Earth, and they believe one of them is capable of hosting life.
On Wednesday, the Belgian University of Liège published results confirming the existence of two giant Earths, one of which was identified for the first time by the Transiting Satellite for Exoplanet Reconnaissance of the US Space Agency, and they were named LP 890-9c and LP 890-9b.
The satellite searches for exoplanets by “monitoring the brightness of thousands of stars simultaneously,” researcher Letitia Delris said. “Follow-up with ground-based telescopes is often necessary to confirm the planetary nature of the observed objects,” she added.
The term “giant” does not automatically mean that a planet is capable of hosting life, but rather that it is larger than the planet Earth and brighter than the giant ice planets such as “Neptune.”
Scientists discovered that one of the two planets is 30% larger than Earth and the second is 40% larger. According to Francisco Puzuillos, co-author of a study to be published in the Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics on the topic, this planet is located close to the sun and “orbits at a distance about 10 times shorter than the distance of Mercury around our sun.”
However, one of the two planets is still in the habitable zone because its sun is about 6.5 times smaller than our sun and half of it is hot. The researchers plan to further study the planet to determine its actual habitability.