Could This Newly Discovered Planet Harbor Life?

An Earth-sized planet only 11 light years away might have the right conditions to sustain life as we know it, despite its star having some strange qualities.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Brainstuff from how Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
luring vogel Bomb. Here, a very special alien world has
been discovered on our galactic doorstep, and it may have
the secret sauce that allows life as we know it
to exist on its surface. Enter Ross B, an Earth
sized exoplanet that likely orbits its star in the habitable zone.

(00:24):
What makes this exoplanet discovery so exciting is that it's
located only eleven light years away, Plus it's red dwarf
star appears to be inactive. That means that this newly
discovered world may not face the radioactive ravages that other
exoplanets likely endure, thereby boosting its habitable potential. Astronomers detected
Ross one using the European Southern Observatories High accuracy radial

(00:47):
velocity planet searcher A K. A. Harps at the Lascia
Observatory in Chile. They measured the slight wobbles of the
star caused by the orbiting exoplanet. In a study published
in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, the researchers calculated the
exo planet's mass and orbital period. A year on Ross
B is slightly less than ten earth days, so the

(01:08):
distance at which it whips around its star is very close.
But as the red dwarf is so tiny and cool,
the exoplanet receives a similar amount of solar heating as
our planet receives from the Sun. Red dwarfs are the
most common type of star in our galaxy, and many
are known to possess planetary systems. The closest star to
our Solar system, Proximus Centauri, is a red dwarf, and
in astronomers made the historic discovery of a small Earth

(01:31):
sized exoplanet in its orbit. That world, called Proxima B,
is the closest habitable zone exo planet to us, and
may even have a temperate atmosphere that could support an
alien ecosystem. However, Proxima Centauri is a violent star that
regularly erupts with powerful flares and pumps out X ray
and ultra violet radiation, which tend to be deadly to
life as we know it. If life could evolve on

(01:53):
Proxima B, and that's a big if, the planet would
need a very powerful magnetosphere a global magnetic feeld to
deflect those powerful stellar winds and thus prevent its atmosphere
from being stripped away and to prevent any life forms
from being irradiated. Ross, on the other hand, lives next
to an inactive red dwarf star one that isn't blasting

(02:14):
local space with a massive dose of radiation. In fact,
according to an E. S O statement, Ross one is
the quietest nearby star to host such a temperate exoplanet.
Despite being twenty times closer to its star than Earth
is to the Sun, Ross only receives thirty eight percent
more radiation. If it does have an atmosphere, life might
have had an opportunity to gain a foothold without getting fried.

(02:37):
Although radiation may not be a problem, orbiting so close
to a red dwarf star presents a unique situation for
habitable zone exoplanets like Ross. For example, researchers expect that
the planet is tidally locked. Tidal locking occurs when a
planet orbits close to its star, like the Moon is
tidally locked with Earth. That's the reason why we only

(02:57):
ever see one side of the Moon facing Us as
it orbits the planet. Exoplanets with compact orbits are also
expected to become tidally locked with their stars. One hemispheres
perpetually facing the star and the other hemisphere is always
facing away, but this wouldn't necessarily be a death sentence.
With the right atmosphere or proportion of land masses two oceans,

(03:18):
heat from the star could be distributed from the planet's
warm daylight side to the cool side in perpetual darkness.
For now, however, though ROSS is an exciting discovery, there's
no way of knowing if the nearby world even possesses
an atmosphere, let alone whether that hypothetical atmosphere has the
right chemical balance for life to thrive. In July, the
air Cebo radio telescope in Puerto Rico detected a mysterious

(03:41):
low frequency signal emanating from the ROSS system. Although there
was some excitement for the possibility of a SETI like
alien radio signal, stromers think that this is the least
likely explanation, favoring the detection of an as yet unexplained
stellar phenomenon or a rogue signal from an orbiting satellite.
When the next ration of ground and space based telescopes

(04:02):
go online, such as the E s O S Extremely
Large Telescope and NASA's James Webb Space Telescope for US,
will become a prime target for astronomers to look for
the spectroscopic clues of chemicals that could be produced by
an alien biosphere. Telescopes like the Extremely Large Telescope will
be on the lookout for water, a substance that is
essential in its liquid form for all life as we

(04:24):
know it, but also possible bio markers like dioxygen, ozone, methane,
and carbon dioxide, which could betray the presence of a
habitable or even possibly inhabited atmosphere, though of course, individually
none of these chemicals would provide definite proof for life.

(04:44):
Today's episode was written by Ian O'Neill and produced by
Tristan McNeil No Relation. For more on this and lots
of other extraterrestrial topics, visit our home planet pow staff
works dot com.