Boris Pavlishev: A team of British and German space scientists using ground-based telescopes in Chile have spotted an Earth-like planet revolving around a Sun-type star just about 44 light hours away from our solar system. The newly-discovered planet is believed to have atmospheric and other conditions that make it very similar to Earth. Of all the Earth-like planets found to date, it’s the closest to us.
More than 800 planets have been discovered outside the solar system over the past two decades, the majority of them being gas giants like Jupiter or solid planets too close to their stars and therefore too hot to support water. The new planet is in the so-called “habitable zone”, which means that it may have water in a liquid state, and it also has an axis of rotation. The latter increases chances that it may support Earth-type life, says astrophysicist Sergei Smirnov of Russia’s Pulkovo Observatory. "It’s important that its rotation should not be synchronous like that of our Moon, which is a reason why only one side of the Moon permanently faces Earth. And also, its revolution period or the length of year should differ from its rotation period or the length of day. This is an additional factor that helps sustain a biosphere. The light-and-shadow cycle and the temperature cycle are also very important. Humans...
