E.T?

Hello everyone and Happy New Yea… it’s four months into the year already. Sorry about the delay, but it’s just that I couldn’t really get a topic to write on until today and also because of exams. Anyway, back to the topic.

As you may have already guessed from the title, this post is going to be about a possible E.T. If you don’t already know what that means, E.T stands for Extra Terrestrial which means ‘not from Earth’.

Recently scientists found a planet outside our solar system with an atmosphere. We’ll get to how they found it later. The planet was named Gliese 1132b after its star, Gliese 1132. Its orbit was in the habitable zone or life giving zone of it’s star. It is also 1.4 times the size of Earth. So it has some life sutaining conditions. It is also at a relatively close distance from us. When I say close when I am talking about cosmic distance, I am saying close enough that a person could send a transmission there at the speed of light and it would reach after half a life span or more. So it is pretty far compared to distances measures on Earth. Ok, the distance is 39 light years away from us which is 3689685003076627⁄8 in kilometers.

Here’s how they found it and its atmosphere.

The artificial satellites orbiting the Earth currently are programmed to detect small fluctuations in the brightness of stars. Here’s why. When you shine a bright light and put a small object through the path of light, the light gets blocked by the object. Using this phenomenon, scientists try detecting small disturbances in the brightness of stars. When there is a difference the data is double checked and observed through many wavelengths of light. When it is confirmed on all wavelengths then they announce it. But this particular planet when observed through a particular type of infrared light seemed larger. Since it was physically impossible to increase the size of an entire planet just by looking though a different wavelength and if no other wavelengths detect this add-on, they came to the conclusion that it had an atmosphere.

How they found its distance form its star.

When they saw the planet transiting across the star, they calculated the amount of time it took the planet to travel from one side of the star to another. Using this they found the average time it took for its orbit. Then they calculated the gravity of the star it was orbiting. Using this data they found the planets’s distance from its star, and it was in the habitable zone which is neither too close nor too far.

That’s all I can say about it. Personally, I hope that GJ 1132b can sustain life, or that it is already sustaining life, and if it does, I hope they give it the name Vulcan or something easier to say than GJ 1132b.

Since it is the end of this post you probably know what I’m going to say and it is just a coincidence that the post was about extra terrestrial life. So…

Live Long and Prosper!