Astronomical scientists are constantly searching for places in space that could become or are already the cradle of extraterrestrial life forms. And recently, one such group of scientists was able to discover two planets with masses comparable to the mass of the Earth, which orbit in the life-friendly zone of the red dwarf star GJ 1002.
GJ 1002 is a small red dwarf star with a mass equal to about one-eighth the mass of the Sun. Its surface temperature is quite low, the star itself is dim, and its "habitable zone" is quite close to the star itself. But most interesting is that the star GJ 1002 and its two planets, GJ 1002b and GJ 1002c, are only 16 light years away from us, which, by cosmic standards, is almost right next to us.
Two astronomical instruments, ESPRESSO (Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectroscopic Observations) and CARMENES (Calar Alto High-Resolution Search for M dwarfs with Exoearths with Near-infrared and Optical Echelle Spectrographs), complemented each other's data, were used to study the star and its planets.
Since the star GJ 1002 is dim in itself, the aforementioned instruments were used at their maximum sensitivity to obtain information about the planets. Between 2017 and 2021, 139 spectroscopic observations were made of the GJ 1002 system.
The planet GJ 1002b is slightly closer to the central star, around which it orbits in 10 days. The second planet, GJ 1002c, is slightly farther away, and it makes one revolution around the star in just over 20 days. This proximity of the planets to the star makes it much easier to observe and measure, and in the near future, scientists plan to find out the composition of the atmospheres of these planets.
"Spectrograph ANDES, which will soon be installed on the ELT telescope of the European Southern Observatory, will allow us to establish the facts of the presence of oxygen, water vapor and other components in the atmospheres of the planets of the GJ 1002 system. And then we will be able to draw some conclusions about the presence of life there" - write the researchers.
"It seems that the universe is now trying to show us that Earth-like planets are not so rare," the researchers write, "With these new two planets, we already know about a total of seven promising systems in terms of the search for life, which are literally close to us by cosmic standards.