Scientists discover a "super Earth" more habitable than Earth? 35 light years away, it will take 610,000 years to reach

We live on the earth. Instead of life and death, every change on the earth's surface will affect human beings. Maybe this impact cannot be discovered in the short term, but will last for many years. Accumulate and change subtly.

With the outbreak of the Industrial Revolution, human beings began to enter modern industrialization. Every forest was destroyed by human beings. Buildings of cold steel and iron tiles stood upright, each one emitting black smoke. Wastewater factories have sprung up like bamboo shoots.

However, humans are very happy because they have more land to accommodate the increasing population, can better develop industry, and the economy is growing rapidly. It seems that except the environment, everything is going well. direction development.

However, human beings do not yet have the ability to abandon the earth and develop outward. We can still only survive and live on the earth, and cannot escape from everything that happens on the earth.

This is also true. Since the development of industry, a large amount of waste gas, waste water and pollutants have been discarded all over the world. The natural environment is gradually deteriorating, and the global climate is also increasing year by year.

In 2021, extreme weather has occurred all over the world, such as heavy rains that have not been seen in a century, high temperatures that have not been seen in a millennium, desert floods, tropical snow, etc., which were difficult to see in the past few decades. The severe weather happened together this year.

Of course, these are not the only threats the earth faces. As the climate increases, glaciers and permafrost are also constantly melting. If things go on like this, sea levels will inevitably rise, which will pose a certain threat to coastal cities. Threats, coupled with the resurgence of some ancient bacteria after melting, are very likely to pose a huge threat to human society.

Therefore, under the predicament of an increasingly harsh natural environment and the increasingly depleted earth resources may not be able to meet the growing needs of mankind in the future, scientists have begun to look for alternatives to the earth in the universe to satisfy mankind. The "Super Earth" is the second survival base in the interstellar era.

"Super Earth" is actually a super terrestrial planet. An terrestrial planet refers to a planet similar to the earth, with a metal core mainly composed of iron elements, and the crust is mostly silicon hydrochloric acid.

The super terrestrial planets are because the arrangement of the planets in the solar system is different from the planets in the star system observed by scientists. The planets in the solar system are small planets close to the star, such as Venus. , Mercury, Earth and Mars. The larger planets far away from the star, such as Jupiter, Neptune, etc., are all gaseous planets.

On the contrary, in other star systems, large stars are often located closer to the star, while small stars are located farther away from the star. Therefore, in star systems in the universe The terrestrial planets are much larger than the terrestrial planets in the solar system. Scientists call them super terrestrial planets, or "super Earths" for short.

If scientists want to find a second immigrant planet suitable for humans to move to, they first need to consider these "super Earths". Their upper mass limit is about 10 times that of the Earth. Some scientists They believe that when judging a super Earth, we should also consider whether there is a relatively obvious atmosphere on the surface, and there must also be a solid surface.

In fact, since 1995, scientists have discovered thousands of "super Earths" in the universe, but not many of them are suitable for human survival.

In 2019, scientists discovered a red dwarf star about 35 light-years away from the Earth. It is located near the southern constellation Flying Fishes and is called L 98-59. Generally speaking, red dwarfs have lower surface temperatures, are redder in color, and have relatively smaller masses. This L 98-59 red dwarf is no exception.

Its mass is only 0.3 times that of the sun, and the light and heat it emits is weaker than that of the sun. Its surface temperature is 2300 degrees lower than that of the sun. However, the lifespan of a red dwarf is longer than that of a yellow dwarf like the sun, and it is also More stable than the latter.

According to scientists’ estimates, there may be two or more planets with liquid water in the L 98-59 star system, and there may even be life.

That is, in 2019, scientists discovered three planets in the L 98-59 star system through NASA's TESS, which is a satellite that uses the transit method to observe exoplanets, namely Observe a large number of stars for a long time and record their brightness changes at different places and at different times. If a planet around a star passes in front of the star, then based on the brightness change curve of the star, the data of the planets near the star can be obtained.

These three planets are called L 98-59 b, L 98-59 c and L 98-59 d. After detailed measurements and analysis, scientists believe that these planets are all Earth-like. Rocky planets are about 0.4 to 1.6 times the size of the Earth, and they all have atmospheres.

Among them, L 98-59 b is the closest planet to the star L 98-59. It is only about 80 times the size of the Earth and about 40 times the mass of the Earth. It is the smallest exoplanet discovered by humans so far.

And because it is too close to the star, only about 3.41 million kilometers away, L 98-59 b receives 22 times more energy than the Earth, so the temperature on the surface is very high and liquid water cannot exist.

The same is true for L 98-59 c, the terrestrial planet that is the second closest to the star L 98-59. The surface temperatures of these two planets are higher than that of Venus in the solar system. Such high temperatures make them unable to satisfy their needs. The conditions under which liquid water exists.

According to scientists’ research on planetary atmosphere spectra, they found that the third closest galaxy, L 98-59 d, has about 1/3 water content, just like a "water" star, almost all of it. It's the ocean.

Therefore, such an "ocean" star cannot meet human survival needs, because we need land and plant plants to exchange carbon dioxide and oxygen for photosynthesis.

At the same time, we also need to grow crops to obtain food, fruits and vegetables. If there is not enough land area, even if humans reach the L 98-59 d planet, they will not be able to survive well.

In fact, in addition to the three Earth-like planets above, in 2021, based on research and calculations, scientists discovered that there is a fourth Earth-like planet, L 98-59 e, in the L 98-59 star system. , and it is speculated that there is a fifth planet L 98-59 f.

And according to analysis, these two planets are likely to have liquid water and atmospheres. The planet L 98-59 e has been confirmed by scientists, but its mass and size are currently unknown.

Although the fifth planet L 98-59 f is only an inference, scientists are convinced that it most likely exists in this star system and is in the habitable zone of the star L 98-59.

The mass of the planet L 98-59 e is about 2.46 times that of the Earth. It not only has liquid water on the surface, but also has a relatively dense atmosphere. Like the Earth, it can block emissions from stars or outer galaxies. The transmitted ultraviolet rays and radiation create conditions for the existence of life.

And through calculations by scientists, it was found that L 98-59 e is in the center of the habitable zone of the star, and the temperature may be closer to that of the Earth, which can be said to be very suitable climate conditions.

Therefore, scientists believe that the planet L 98-59 e is likely to be very habitable, and there may already be signs of life.

However, it is not L 98-59 e that has attracted the most attention and interest among scientists, but L 98-59 f, which has not yet been confirmed to actually exist.

According to estimates, the planet L 98-59 f may have a mass about 2.5 times that of the Earth, and it is also located in the middle of the habitable zone of the L 98-59 star system. Theoretically, L 98-59 The stellar energy received by f is almost the same as that of the earth.

In other words, this "super Earth-like planet" will not have a surface temperature that is too high or too low due to receiving too much or too little stellar energy. Instead, it will be a very suitable temperature. There will also be liquid water on the surface.

Although the time required for L 98-59 f to orbit the star L 98-59 is only about 23 days, and it seems to be very close to the star, because the star L 98-59 is a It is a red dwarf star with weak energy and less intense light and heat than the sun, so the habitable zone is actually not too far away.

In fact, the planet L 98-59 f is located closer to the center of the habitable zone than the Earth, and may be more habitable than the Earth.

The star L 98-59 is about 35 light-years away from the earth. This does not seem too far away. After all, it is only two digits. If humans can have a spacecraft traveling at the speed of light, it will only take 35 years. You can come to the star system in about 10 seconds to see whether the planet L 98-59 f is suitable for human survival.

But in fact, human beings' existing technology cannot achieve the speed of light at all, and cannot even reach sub-light speed.

The fastest man-made spacecraft in the history of spaceflight so far is the Parker Solar Probe. Because the closer it is to the sun, the stronger the influence of the latter's gravitational force, which reduces the speed of the Parker Solar Probe. Getting faster and faster, even reaching a speed of 95 kilometers per second when it was about 24.8 million kilometers away from the sun in 2018.

If the speed of Voyager 1, which is flying out of the solar system, is 17 kilometers per second, it will take 610,000 years for humans to reach the position of the star L 98-59. You must know that only 5,500 years have passed since humans entered civilized society in 2021, not even a fraction of 610,000 years.

Judging from the current stage of human science and technology, no matter how many habitable "super Earths" humans discover, according to the universe, they are often tens, hundreds or even thousands of light-year units. We are here For a long time, we will not be able to leave the earth and go to these habitable planets that can "accept" humans.

In fact, from 1961, when humans first stepped into space, until 60 years later, in 2021, all they can achieve so far is to step on the soil of the moon, and the moon is still just a planet. Satellites of the Earth, and only the United States has ever done so. Future planetary exploration plans will have to wait until after 2030 before various countries will carry out Mars-related plans.

There is still a lot of room for development in human aerospace industry. Perhaps in the future, we can really develop sub-light speed, or even light speed, or super-light speed spacecraft, which can travel in the universe and explore the things in it. Mystery.