It is not yet clear whether the new exoplanet has an atmosphere. Because Proxima Centauri is a relatively active star, Proxima b receives 400 times more X-ray exposure than we have on Earth, and this could cause the atmosphere to escape.

But Ansgar Reiners of the University of Göttingen in Germany says it all depends on how and when the exoplanet formed. It may have formed further away, where water was present, and then migrated closer to its star, or it may have formed initially close to Proxima Centauri. In the first scenario, the presence of an atmosphere would be more likely.

“There are many models and simulations that produce a wide variety of results, including possible atmosphere and water,” says Reiners. "We don't have a clue yet, but the existence of an atmosphere is definitely possible." This would be a strong argument in favor of the possible presence of life on the planet. And the relative proximity to our solar system makes robotic exploration possible within a generation.

"Proxima has a lifetime of several trillion years, almost a thousand times longer than the remaining lifetime of the Sun," says Avi Loeb of Harvard University, who heads the advisory. "A potentially habitable rocky planet near Proxima will be the first place our civilization can go after the Sun dies in five billion years."

The Starshot initiative, which we featured in April, is a $100 million program to find and explore the possibilities of interstellar travel. The first stage involves the construction of light self-propelled "nano-devices" that can move at a speed of 20% of light. Such a spacecraft would reach Alpha Centauri 20 years after launch. Currently, the scientists of the project are trying to demonstrate the possibility of using powerful laser beams, with the help of which a light sail will move.

The discovery of a potentially habitable planet near Proxima Centauri opens up a great target for the mission, Loeb said. A spacecraft equipped with a camera and various filters can take color pictures of the planet and determine whether it is green (meaning it has life), blue (with oceans on the surface), or just brown (dry rock). The desire to learn more about the planet - namely, whether there is life on it - will give the Starshot initiative a sense of urgency to gather facts about the planet. In particular, those that cannot be reached using the current generation of terrestrial telescopes on Earth.

"We definitely hope to be able to launch these nanoprobes within a generation," Peter Warden of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation said during a recent press conference. - Possibly by 2060. We now know that there is at least one interesting target within reach of our proposed system. We will be able to get pictures and find out if life exists there, possibly advanced. These are big questions, and we will have answers to them this century.”

The importance of discovering an Earth-like planet so close to Earth is that we can learn more about it, literally touch it, very, very soon. This may be a find of the century, because already in this century we will “visit” it.

MOSCOW, October 26 - RIA Novosti. Planetologists from Switzerland say that Proxima b, the closest exoplanet to us, should be similar in its properties and size to Earth and have significant reserves of water, which increases the chances of life on it, according to an article published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

"Our models very accurately reproduce the properties of planets similar to Proxima b and other planets discovered in recent years. Interestingly, our calculations show that planets orbiting a short distance from red dwarfs are usually small. Their radius is between 0, 5 to 1.5 the radius of the Earth, and most likely they are approximately the size of the Earth. Observations in the future will show whether we are right or not, "says Yann Alibert (Yann Alibert) from the University of Bern (Switzerland).

Alibert and his colleague William Benz came to this conclusion by studying the potential properties of two recently discovered small planets - TRAPPIST-1, the discovery of which scientists told in May this year, and Proxima b, officially "discovered" in August.

Both of these planets revolve around small red dwarfs and presumably have Earth masses and properties, which led astronomers to the idea that planets around such stars, which make up the majority of the "population" of the Milky Way, are very common and that they are likely to become the first worlds, where humanity will find extraterrestrial life in the future.

The fact that the Kepler telescope failed to detect larger planets around red dwarfs in the last two years of work led Alibert and Benz to the idea that such stars form predominantly Earth-like celestial bodies that are more habitable than "hot Neptunes" and other gas giants. They tested this by creating a computer model of a planetary "maternity hospital" in a typical red dwarf.

Their calculations showed that most of the planets born around small stars would indeed have a relatively small mass and resemble the Earth and other rocky planets in their properties. Moreover, what is most interesting, the model of Alibert and Benz shows that almost all such planets should have significant water reserves - approximately 90% of their mass will be in "solid" rocks, and 10% in the oceans.

Accordingly, the chances that both TRAPPIST-1, which is only 40 light-years away from us, and Proxima b are peculiar "twins" of the Earth, should be very high. On the other hand, as Benz and Alibert admit, a large amount of water on them can reduce the chances of the origin of life, since an excessive amount of water vapor in the atmosphere can destabilize the climate and generate a strong greenhouse effect.

Nevertheless, according to planetary scientists, their calculations confirm that small planets around red dwarfs are the most likely candidates for the role of a "second Earth" on which life can exist, compared with all other stars and planets. Accordingly, observations of them should be continued and significantly expanded, the authors of the article conclude.

The science

Scientists have discovered a mysterious planet outside our solar system, which is most similar in size and composition to the Earth, but on it too hot to sustain life.

The exoplanet was named Kepler-78b. Its orbit has puzzled astronomers - it is 20% wider, and the mass is 80% more than the earth, despite the fact that its density is the same as that of our planet.

The exoplanet is at a distance of about 1.5 million kilometers from the star. Kepler-78b orbits its star in about 8.5 hours. The temperature on the planet is about 2000 degrees Celsius, according to scientists.

The discovery was mentioned in two studies (first and second), the results of which were in turn published in the journal Nature.

Thanks to telescope Kepler astronomers have learned of thousands of exoplanets in our galaxy, many of them the same size as our planet. These planets revolve around stars like our Sun.

Although it is easy to measure the size of an exoplanet, it was quite difficult to find out its mass. Mass is an important parameter, since it allows you to find out the density of the planet, which means to find out what this planet is made of.

Earth-like exoplanets

Kepler-78b is very interesting because this smallest exoplanet, in which scientists were able to find out the radius and mass with great accuracy.

By astronomical standards, this planet can be called a virtual twin of the Earth.

Scientists learn the size of an exoplanet, as well as the time it takes to orbit its star, by measuring the amount of light the planet blocks as it passes in front of the star.

After scientists measured the brightness of the planet Kepler-78b for 4 years at 30-minute intervals, the scientists found that the star's brightness dropped by .02% every 8.5 hours as the planet passed in front of its star.

secret planet

The planet Kepler-78b was discovered in September 2013 when it orbited a star similar to our Sun in the constellation Cygnus, about 400 light years from Earth.

Since its launch (March 2009), the Kepler space telescope has been able to detect nearly 3,600 potential exoplanets.

Two teams of scientists studied the mass and density of the new planet. Team Andrew Howard (Andrew Howard) from University of Hawaii, calculated that the mass of the planet Kepler-78b is 1.69 times that of the Earth, while the data of the team of Francesco Pepe (Francesco Pepe) from University of Geneva, showed that the exoplanet has a mass of 1.86 times more.

The density that the first team calculated is 5.57 grams per cubic centimeter, while the second team came up with a density of 5.3 grams per cubic centimeter.

Since each team recognizes certain errors, it can be said with certainty that scientists are right in their calculations. It is worth noting that the density of the Earth is 5.5 grams per cubic centimeter. This means that the new exoplanet may have the same composition as the Earth.

new planet

The new planet circles around its sun, gradually approaching it, and, approximately in 3 billion years her days will be numbered- the colossal gravity of the star will tear it to pieces.

By astronomical standards, the planet will become part of a star very soon. On Kepler-78b it will not be possible find alien life, due to too high a temperature on its surface.

And yet, the mass and density of the new planet, similar to the Earth, allow us to hope that somewhere there is a twin planet of our Earth, which has a similar size, composition and temperature on its surface.

According to Drake Deming of University of Maryland, the existence of Kepler-78b proves that, outside our solar system, planets similar in composition to Earth are not uncommon.

Deming hints at a new NASA program called TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite). It will be a space telescope currently being developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For two years, his mission will be to find and study of unknown transiting exoplanets revolving around bright stars.

* Our planet does not have a constant weight. According to scientists, every year the Earth becomes heavier by 40,000 -160,000 tons, but manages to drop about 96,600 tons, which means a loss of about 56,440 tons.

While working with the high-precision HARPS spectrograph installed at the European Southern Observatory (ESO), a team of researchers discovered a small exoplanet orbiting the red dwarf Ross 128. Astronomers believe that its size and surface temperature are very close to Earth. More interestingly, the planet Ross 128 b is located only 11 light-years from the solar system, making it the second closest exoplanet to us after Proxima b.

Silent star and promising planet

“This discovery was made possible by a decade of monitoring HARPS (High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher) data, coupled with state-of-the-art information analysis methods,” says Nicola Astudillo-Defrou from the University of Geneva, co-author of a paper on the new discovery. “Until now, only HARPS has demonstrated such measurement accuracy, and for 15 years it has been the best planet hunter in the world,” he assures.

The team notes that most red dwarfs experience intense solar flares, which usually literally blow planets off the atmosphere and irradiate them with solar radiation. However, Ross 128 is an unexpectedly "quiet" star that does not have such activity. As a result, its planets may be the closest point to our planet for the colonization of other star systems. This is the special importance of the discovery: if in the case of the well-known Proxima b, an aggressive star could destroy the planet's atmosphere and turn it into a rocky desert, then Ross 128 b gives humanity hope for space expansion.

Opening value

The orbit of Ross 128b is 20 times closer to the star than the distance between the Earth and the Sun, but the planet receives only 1.38 times more solar radiation. As a result, the temperature on its surface does not differ much from our planet: in the coldest points it does not fall below -60 ° C, and in the hottest it does not rise above 20 ° C. However, scientists are not yet sure whether the planet is included in such called " the goldilocks zone"- the region around the star, the conditions of which allow water on the planets to exist in a liquid state.

“Thanks to powerful modern telescopes, in 10 years we will be able to see a new planet and characterize its atmosphere. Currently, we only have theoretical models, and therefore we cannot say with certainty whether liquid water exists on the surface of Ross 128 b, ”explains Nicola in an interview with Futurism.