NASA-Funded Research Team Aims To Find 'Earth-Like' Exoplanets Using Atomically Accurate Sensors

RJ Pierce, Tech Times 29 July 2021, 07:07 pm

NASA is stopping at nothing to find out if we're really alone in the universe.

In a recent report by Spectrum, a NASA and US National Science Foundation (NSF) backed team of researchers from the Pennsylvania State University. They will be looking for an Earth-like exoplanet in a different way: by using new, atomically precise sensors, in a process known as spectroscopy.

In simpler terms, the team plans to detect any Earth-like exoplanet by looking for a certain wobble in its star's orbit. That's because any planet orbiting a star will cause that star to wobble even so slightly, while also causing its light to dim just a little bit. And it's all thanks to the gravitational pull that the planet's orbit has.

Scientists have been using this method for almost three decades now, so spectroscopy itself is nothing new. But the research team is facing an extremely tough problem, mainly because they're looking for a clone of Earth. That "Earth 2.0" will cause its star to wobble extremely subtly, that the fluctuation they're trying to detect is as small as only as few atoms across.

Yes, you read that right: measuring an orbital wobble and light fluctuation a mere several atoms across is an impossible feat for any human, which is why the atomically precise sensors come into the equation.

This news comes after it's been reported by a team at NASA that Earth-like planets are so hard to detect, they could be hiding in plain sight, writes Space.com. With the atomically accurate spectroscope, the aforementioned research team will have a much better chance at finding Earth 2.0 than ever before.

NASA And Its Hunt for Habitable Planets: How Close Is Humanity To Finding One?

Ever since the first exoplanet was discovered in 1988, space agencies such as NASA have spearheaded the hunt for worlds which could potentially host life as we know it on Earth. And their biggest discoveries have yielded a lot of interesting results.

Last year, 24 so-called "super habitable" exoplanets out of 4,500 were spotted by a team from Washington State University. These planets were called "super habitable" because the researchers identified them to be a little bigger and warmer, slightly older, and wetter than the Earth. According to them, these factors combined could make for a world that's actually cooler and more conducive for complex life forms to evolve.

These planets, however, can never be visually confirmed because they're too far away. On average, they're 100 light years away from the Earth. For the uninitiated, a light year is the distance that light (the fastest thing in the universe) travels within a year. That entire distance? 6 trillion miles (9 trillion kilometers), according to SpacePlace.

One planet, though, might've been the first-ever one to actually be photographed: Proxima C. In a paper published in the journal "Astronomy and Astrophysics," the team that was studying Proxima C made this claim.

For now, the hunt for life elsewhere in the universe goes on, and NASA, along with other space agencies, will be leading all efforts.

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Written by RJ Pierce