Another 85 exoplanets potentially suitable for life have been discovered (2 photos)

Scientists from the University of WarwickWarwick) while analyzing data from the TESS space telescope discovered 85 new exoplanet candidates with conditions suitable for life. This means that all new objects are in the so-called habitable zone of their star, where climatic conditions allow water to remain liquid. These discoveries have yet to be confirmed and, perhaps, someday this will lead to the discovery of alien life.

To date, over 5,500 have been openedexoplanets. The TESS telescope contributed to these discoveries by hunting for exoplanets by recording transits—the passage of a planet in front of the disk of its parent star. A short-term decrease in the brightness of a star with a certain period makes it possible to calculate the mass of an object (exoplanet), its orbit, size and, consequently, density. All this data allows us to find out with sufficient accuracy what kind of planet we discovered and how close it is in characteristics to Earth.

The object is given the status of an open exoplanetonly when its size and orbit are confirmed by two different registration methods. All 85 new candidates have so far been found in the TESS transit data and require confirmation. Moreover, all new objects obscured their stars only twice, while already confirmed exoplanets did this more often. And the more often this happens, the more reliable the data, and also the closer the exoplanet is to the star, which, in turn, is bad for the development of life - it is too hot and there is strong radiation there.

Of the 85 exoplanet candidates in the habitable zone25 have already been discovered by other teams of scientists, which once again confirms the repeatability of discoveries. But 60 candidates were named for the first time. They are all located in their own star systems. Preliminary data suggests that the newly discovered exoplanets orbit their stars with a period of 20 to 700 days. True, they are all larger than the Earth - from a third to several tens of times. But this is due to the imperfection of our instruments, which are not yet capable of registering truly Earth-like planets.

All new candidates will be further studiedfor confirmation and clarification of data on them. But it is already clear that there are an innumerable number of planets in the Universe, and alien life, simply by the laws of large numbers, should not be unique. Someday we will find it, but whether it will be good or bad is a separate question.