Posted on 03 February 2010. Tags: 1995, Earth, European Space Agency, extrasolar planet, extroplanet, Geneva University, Kepler, Michel Mayor, Milky Way, NASA, Orion spiral arm, Outer Space Affairs, professor, Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence
Professor Michel Mayor, the scientist who led the team that identified the first extrasolar planet in 1995, believes a planet similar in size and composition to Earth will soon be found.
Prof Mayor, of Geneva University, said that the prospect of finding a planet habitable for humans had come a step closer through rapid technological advances allowing observation of planets outside the solar system.
Addressing a Royal Society conference to mark the 50th anniversary of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) programme, he said: “The search for twins of Earth is motivated by the ultimate prospect of finding sites with favourable conditions for the development of life.
“We’ve entered a new phase in this search.”
More than 400 extroplanets have been discovered over the past 15 years, he added.
However, it is doubtful that any of these could be inhabited by humans because they are too large, Prof Mayor told the audience, which included representatives from Nasa, the European Space Agency and the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs.
Large planets are likely to have very active tectonic plates, making for a highly turbulent environment. To date, the smallest exoplanet found is 1.7 times the mass of the Earth.
Another key factor is finding a planet which is the right distance from the star it orbits so that its climate is temperate enough.
Prof Mayor said: “If the planet’s too close, it will be blazing hot and all the water will evaporate and if it’s too far away, it will be ice.”
He predicts that Nasa’s Kepler spacecraft, which is carrying the largest telescope to have been sent beyond the Earth’s orbit, will be the first to find a planet that meets the necessary criteria.
The telescope, which has been in orbit around the Sun since March last year, is focused on a dense star field in the Orion spiral arm of the Milky Way.
It is monitoring more than 100,000 stars every half-hour for three years, and looks for variations in the brightness of stars caused by planets as small as Earth passing in front of them.
It is hoped that within about four years Kepler will have found planets of the same size as Earth that are also in the “habitable zone”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
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