In James Cameron’s new movie,Avatar, humans visit an alien moon namedPandora. If there are moons like this, or like the Endor satellite ofStar Wars, theNASA Kepler missionYou’ll find them, says astronomer Lisa Kaltenergger of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.“If Pandora existed, we could detect it and study its atmosphere in the next decade”, assures the researcher.
The search for planets has already identified hundreds of Jupiter-sized objects outside the Solar System. Thesegas giantsAlthough they are easy to detect, they cannot serve as a home for life as we know it. However, scientists have speculated that rocky moons orbiting a gas giant could indeed be habitable if the region is warm enough for liquid water to exist. “All the gas giant planets in our solar system haverocky and icy moons“explains this astronomer.” This raises the possibility that the large exoplanets discovered may also have moons, and that some of them with a size similar to that of the Earth are capable of havingatmosphere?.
Kepler looks for planets that cross through their stars in their orbit, leaving a faint imprint on the stellar glow. Sayingtransitit occurs in only a few hours and requires an exact alignment of the star and the planet through our line of sight. Kepler will examine thousands of stars to find worlds in transit. Once an alien Jupiter has been found, astronomers can search for moons in its orbit and then find out if it has an atmosphere.
Kaltenegger has calculated which conditions are best for examining the atmospheres of alien moons. And he has come to the conclusion that precisely Alpha Centauri A, the system described inAvatar, it would be an excellent target. “Alpha Centauri A It is a bright, close star similar to our Sun, “Kaltenegger declared.” It would take a small number of transits to find water, carbon dioxide, oxygen and methane on Earth-like moons similar to Pandora ?, he adds.
