![]() ![]() The telescope’s secondary research objectives run the gamut from small-scale observations of asteroids and comets in our solar system to large-scale works of “galactic archaeology,” meaning studies of the Milky Way’s evolution across billions of years. “ET survey simulations show that the ET transit survey will be able to detect about ∼29,000 new planets, including ∼4,900 Earth-sized planets and 10-20 Earth 2.0s assuming an Earth 2.0 occurrence rate of 10 percent,” the team said, noting that the mission will pool the talents of “300 scientists and engineers from over 40 institutions in China and abroad” They added that the mission intends to answer questions such as: “How common are habitable Earth-like planets orbiting around solar-type stars? 2) How do Earth-like planets form and evolve? 3) What is the mass function and likely origin of free-floating low-mass planets?” ![]() “The ET mission will explore the diversity of Earth-sized planet populations with different orbital periods including close-in sub-Earths, terrestrial-like planets in habitable zones, cold planets, and free-floating planets, and will accurately determine the occurrence rates of these small/low-mass planets,” Ge and his colleagues said. The observatory’s preliminary design includes seven telescopes that will spend at least four years scanning the skies from a planned vantagepoint at the second Lagrange Point (L2), a gravitational balancing point between Earth and the Sun, which is also home to NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Most current space missions for exoplanets do not cover this key area”īeyond Earth-like worlds, the project will shed light on a host of questions about many other kinds of exoplanets, which are worlds outside of our solar system, including free-floating planets-also known as unbound or rogue planets–that have been ejected from their star systems, or that formed in interstellar space. “Therefore, it is necessary to identify Earth 2.0s first before extraterrestrial life can be possibly detected. “Habitable Earth-like planets around solar-type stars, i.e., Earth 2.0s, are likely the most favorable places to search for extraterrestrial life due to their potentially having physical, chemical, and potentially biological environments similar to Earth,” ” said the mission team-which is led by Jian Ge, a professor at the the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory of the CAS-in the white paper. Once identified, these worlds could be scanned for signs of life, called biosignatures, by other telescopes, which could yield insights into one of the most persistent questions in human history: Are we alone in the universe? This central focus on Earth 2.0s is part of a larger international effort to find worlds that might be potentially habitable.
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