Zwei erdgroße Exoplaneten entdeckt, die einen nahegelegenen Stern umkreisen

>”The planet closer to the star, designated HD 101581 b, has a radius of approximately 0.956 Earth radii and its mass was calculated to be not larger than 3.6 Earth masses. The planet orbits its host every 4.47 days, at a distance of about 0.046 AU from it. The equilibrium temperature of HD 101581 b was estimated to be 834 K.

>The second planet, which received the designation HD 101581 c, is almost the size of the Earth (0.99 Earth radii), while its maximum mass was determined to be 4.2 Earth masses. HD 101581 c has an orbital period of 6.21 days, is separated from the parent star by approximately 0.057 AU, and its equilibrium temperature was calculated to be at a level of 747 K.”

Sorry folks, no aliens here. Even though this star is a bit smaller than our Sun and thus less bright, these exoplanets are still quite a lot hotter than Earth’s 288 K average temperature, much too hot for liquid water that we think is necessary for life as we know it to evolve.

This is the unfortunate reality of pretty much all of our current exoplanet detection methods: we find a lot of exoplanets that are way bigger than Earth and when we do find Earth-sized exoplanets they are way too close to the parent star (and we also find a lot of exoplanets that are both too big and too close, called “hot Jupiters”). It’s easier to see big dips in stellar brightness from large and/or close-in stuff (like what TESS, that found these two exoplanets does) just like it’s easier to see redshift-wobbles of gravitational interaction from big/close-in stuff.

We’ll have to get quite lucky to find a true Earth 2.0 in our local patch of the galaxy, at least until we make another big leap in exoplanet detection technology.