planets

For next April 8, a strange cosmic phenomenon is planned: a planetary alignment, in which we, by the way, will participate.

The circle is closing more and more around possible exoplanets that could host life thanks to the presence of water. So much so that a team of astronomers from the University of Puerto Rico has drawn up a list of the 9 candidates. They are as follows:

Mercury is about 5,000 kilometers in diameter; It is, in fact, the smallest planet in the solar system, and even smaller today. A team of NASA astronomers has discovered that the planet has a slightly smaller radius than previously thought, because the contraction it has suffered in the last 4 billion years has been much more pronounced than previously imagined. experts. This contraction has shrunk its radius by about 7 kilometers.

possibility of naming a planet, star or any stellar object paying for it.

An international team of astronomers has just discovered a very Earth-like planet orbiting a red dwarf star about 200 light-years from us. According to scientific calculations, it has a weight very similar to that of the Earth, but its diameter is 60% greater, which indicates that it must have a very thick gaseous atmosphere.

Mars is no longer what it was. This NASA 3D recreation shows how scientists believe the red planet was 4 billion years ago, much more like Earth than today. In fact, researchers recently discovered, Mars had an oxygen-rich atmosphere precisely 4 billion years ago, long before atmospheric oxygen emerged about 2.5 billion years ago.

Virtually no one thinks that we are alone in the galaxy anymore. However, as data collected by NASA's Kepler satellite indicates, it appears that there are many more planets than we can think of with life far from the Solar System. According to these data, one in five stars similar to our Sun would have a planet similar in size to Earth in a habitable zone.

Thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have been able to find out the true color of a planet orbiting a star other than the Sun. HD 189733b is a celestial blue color, chromatically similar to the appearance of the Earth seen from the outside. Are they alike in something else?