A group of astronomers led by Guillem Anglada-Escude of Queen Mary University of London, University of London, announced that they had discovered two planets around the star Kapteyn. And on one of them life is possible.
The discovery was made with the so-called "High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS)" spectrograph installed at the European Southern Observatory in Chile. He searches for planets, detecting anomalies in the movement of stars. If a star has satellites, then, revolving around, they affect it - make it vibrate. The star changes speed. And these vibrations are precisely recorded by the seeker.
Kaptein's star is notable for the fact that it is rapidly rushing in the direction opposite to the one towards which other stars in our galaxy are moving. Its mass is three times less than that of the sun. It is much dimmer - about 250 times. But it is quite close - only 12 light years from us. Someday it will be possible to fly.
The most surprising thing is that Kaptein's star is much older than its neighbors. She is 11.5 billion years old. About the same number and discovered nearby planets. That is, this system is more than twice as old as the solar one. And astronomers believe that she was born in another galaxy. But in the end, for some reason, she ended up in the Milky Way, and even close to the Sun. Perhaps the home galaxy of Kaptein's star - presumably a dwarf one - was once captured by ours.
Research has shown that one of the planets orbiting an alien star is very far from it. And it's cold there - like on our Neptune. The planet was named Kapteyn c. It was determined that a year on it lasts 121 earth days.
But another planet - Kapetyn b - is located in the so-called habitable zone. That is, its orbit is such that the heat of even a small star is enough to create comfortable conditions on the planet. And if there is water, then it is liquid.
A year on Kapetyn b is 48 days long. The planet is about 5 times more massive than the Earth.
Amateur astronomers observe Kaptein's Star through small telescopes in the constellation Painter
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The researchers who discovered the "old woman" are shocked by her age - more than 11 billion years. What excites their imagination.
- I can not even imagine what form of life could appear and develop on such planets with such a huge time of its existence, - says Anglada-Escudé.
That is, scientists do not exclude that Kapetyn b can be habitable. And if so, then its inhabitants are just old-timers of the Universe.
If the old residents are still alive, then they admire the stunning sunrises and sunsets. After all, their planet is located so close to its star - a red dwarf, that he - a dwarf - seems huge. The apparent diameter is 10 times that of the Sun.