Chinese scientists have proposed a mission to look for habitable worlds by using measurements of how orbiting planets make a star wobble, the first of its kind if carried out.
The mission, the Closeby Habitable Exoplanet Survey, would allow scientists to use a telescope to measure the positions and movements of stars compared with a set of background reference stars, providing estimates of the masses of exoplanets, which are planets outside the solar system, and the distance at which they orbit stars. The process could reveal whether the exoplanets being studied have the potential to host life, according to Space.
“The hunt for habitable worlds about nearby sunlike stars will be a great breakthrough for humanity and will also help humans visit those Earth twins and expand our living space in the future,” said Ji Jianghui, a research professor from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “As of today, over 5,000 exoplanets have been discovered and confirmed so far, including around 50 Earth-like planets in the habitable zone, but most of them are hundreds of light-years away from Earth.”
SEE IT: NASA RELEASES FINAL PHOTO OF SOLAR-POWERED INSIGHT LANDER ON MARS
The European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope is using the same method as CHES to create a 3D map of a billion stars in the Milky Way. However, CHES would be more focused than Gaia, targeting 100 sunlike stars within 10 parsecs, or 33 light-years, of Earth in an effort to detect Earth-like planets in the habitable zones around those stars.
The CHES telescope would carry out its work from sun-Earth Lagrange Point 2, about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth, the same location where Gaia and the James Webb Space Telescope are operating.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Another mission that appears to be in competition with the CHES proposal is from the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory. SAO’s mission, titled Earth 2.0 and also intended to operate from sun-Earth Lagrange Point 2, would monitor 1.2 million dwarf stars in an attempt to narrow the search for Earth-like planets.
The decisions to provide funding to the CHES mission are expected to be made in June. If funding is granted, the CHES team will work to build the telescope for a 2026 launch, according to Live Science.
