Proposed China Mission to Search for Earth 2.0
hubie writes:
China is planning its first satellite mission to search the Milky Way for exoplanets orbiting stars just like the Sun. The mission goal is to find the first Earth-like planet orbiting in the habitable zone of a star just like the Sun. Such a planet, called an Earth 2.0, would have the right conditions for liquid water and have the potential to harbor life. Although more than 5000 exoplanets were found with NASA's Kepler telescope before it ran out of fuel in 2018, none fit the definition of an Earth 2.0.
Exoplanets are found by looking for stellar brightnesses to dim as a planet passes in front. An Earth 2.0 candidate would have an orbital period of about a year and would thus pass in front of its star once a year. You want about three passes to get a decent determination of the oribit, so you need to be observing the same stars for more than three years. The Kepler mission suffered a failure early in its mission that prevented staring at the same spot for long periods of time, so it wasn't possible to determine precise orbits for the explanets it discovered. This new mission will search the same patch of sky with more telescopes gather more data to allow orbits to be calculated.
With Earth 2.0, astronomers could have another four years of data that, when combined with Kepler's observations, could help to confirm which exoplanets are truly Earth-like. "I am very excited about the prospect of returning to the Kepler field," says Christiansen, who hopes to study Earth 2.0's data if they are made available.
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