NASA advertised its mission, creating a buzz around the mediocre discovery.
NASA reports a new victory. The TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) satellite, launched in April 2018 to search for planets around other stars, has found the first habitable planet in history! No wonder the taxpayers' $ 200 million was spent. They launched relatively recently - and already what a result. At the same time, you can forget about the failures and scandals that have plagued NASA in recent years. No wonder the news spread to hundreds of thousands of media outlets around the world and went viral.
Unfortunately, in fact, there is nothing amazing about the opening. Not the fact that the new planet really has life. In addition, this is not the first planet of its kind as the propaganda trumpets.
The planet (she was given the number TOI700d) revolves around a faint star in the constellation Dorado (this is a constellation in the southern celestial hemisphere, it is not visible from Russia). All this is located at a distance of one hundred thousand light years from us, that is, quite far away (the bright stars that you see in the sky with your eyes are 50-70 light years away, not thousands, note). The planet is indeed in the habitable zone, or, as it is also called, in the Goldilocks Zone. What it is? For example, the Earth is in the habitable zone of the Sun. It's not very hot here, not very cold. The oceans do not boil away, they are not covered with ice. This is the habitable zone. Each star has its own - say, if a star is larger than the Sun, its habitable zone is further away.
The planet is only slightly larger than the Earth - by 20%. That is, it is not a giant, where legs grow to the soil, and gravity will destroy everything, and not a dwarf, from which the air will simply fly away. Finally, the star itself is calm, does not flare, that is, it shines steadily, like the Sun. All this really gives the chance that there can be life on the planet. In theory. Probably.
For such planets, there is the term "Earth analog", and such analogs have been searched for before - and found. The most famous of them is the planet Gliese 581 g in the constellation Libra, however, scientists later figured it out and realized that this planet and the other two next to it are more likely similar to our Neptune, that is, there is no life there. Other candidates are HD 85512 b in the constellation Sails and the once sensational Kepler-22b in the constellation Cygnus.
And, of course, how not to remember the high-profile press conference of NASA in 2017. It was summoned hastily and in just a day. Rumors spread: they found life! As a result, it was reported that seven planets suitable for life were found at once near the star TRAPPIST-1 in the constellation Aquarius. But the experts were not very impressed then. All seven planets were located compactly, side by side, and if they are placed in our system, they will fit inside the orbit of Mercury. Not otherwise, there was a planet, but fell apart into seven pieces, what kind of life is there. We immediately remembered that NASA had made noise earlier, namely, when they found a "second Earth" near the nearest star Proxima Centauri. Only five light years! And then the investors pulled themselves up, they wanted to make microscopic ships, accelerate them almost to the speed of light, and send them there. Nothing, of course, was dispersed and sent.
In general, not the first earth-like planet. And moreover: many planets, about which they used to say that they are similar to the Earth, did not turn out to be such. Gloating here is not out of hand. You perfectly understand that it is impossible to see tiny planets at such a distance, mistakes are inevitable. And how, by the way, are they opened? You can't see them, are you? When a planet passes in front of a star, the star goes out a bit because the planet is covering it. The satellite catches this and waits for such a phenomenon to happen again. After all, a star can reduce its brightness itself, without being eclipsed by the planet. And now it is established that the star fades from time to time. Therefore, we have found a planet, and we already know its orbital period (by brightness fluctuations). And, knowing the period, you will immediately calculate the distance of the planet from the star. And by indirect signs, estimate its size. So-so method? But there is no better one yet. Directly,Having closed the star with a shutter, you can see some of the planets, but these will be the largest planets near the closest stars. On such a life does not happen, too huge.
Promotional video:
Of course, it is necessary to search for planets similar to Earth, but it is not yet very clear what this will give. Move there because there is not enough food and water on Earth? We can’t fly to the moon normally, it’s expensive, and we also aimed at the stars. In addition, there are planets in the solar system where it is at least theoretically realistic to fly and try to live there, for example, Mars. Make contact with extraterrestrial intelligence? So the Universe is silent. How many signals were sent there, listened to the answer, there is no answer, and there are no signals. We will now listen to the planet in the constellation Dorado, and we will not hear anything either. For some reason, the Universe looks empty (maybe it just looks).
Finally, it is not a fact that life can only exist on terrestrial planets. In our solar system, not today - tomorrow they will find life on Saturn's moon Titan, or on the moons of Jupiter, go even on Jupiter itself, and maybe on Venus - life is diverse. It is possible that life does not require water, oxygen and other attributes of our earthly biosphere.
It's like that. But in science, as well as in our life in general, there are winning topics, for which money is given, and for which the public follows, and not very advantageous, and maybe much more important. They deal with those and those, but high-profile topics, because it is easier to get money. Alas, everything is so commonplace.
EVGENY ARSYUKHIN
