Well hey! Astronomers have just spotted a new planet
approximately 22.5 light-years away from us! Now, if you zoom in closer, closer -- see? It already has a McDonalds! How do they do that? Well no, that’s not true. The most exciting thing about this new planet? It has three suns! And researchers say that it might be our best
shot at encountering other life forms! So, are we going to meet our space neighbors
any time soon? Well, before I data dump on you all about
this new planet, I have to mention the way it was found. All thanks to TESS – well no, not my girlfriend
Tess from 3rd grade. This TESS stands for the Transiting Exoplanet
Survey Satellite: a NASA mission that’s been in search of planets orbiting the brightest
stars of our galaxy since April 2018. Within its lifetime, the satellite is supposed
to monitor 200,000 stars, looking for any exoplanets, from gas giants to small-sized
rocky worlds. By the way, Tess -- from 3rd grade—how do
you like me now? On Bright Side – pretty cool huh? I keep talking about exoplanets, but what
exactly are they? Well, it's literally any planet situated outside
of our Solar System and orbiting its own star. Yep, it’s that simple! Unfortunately, it's quite hard to spot exoplanets
from Earth, because the brightness of their stars effectively hides the planets from sight. Then again, scientists have already discovered
more than 4,000 exoplanets, and aren't going to stop. If you want to find an exoplanet of your own,
look for the stars that seem "wobbly." The chances are high that a planet circles
this star and occasionally blocks its light. But back to TESS, um the satellite -- astronomers
hope that during the first two years of the satellite's operation, it’ll come across
10,000 unknown worlds. So far, TESS has already located several planets,
including the one with three suns. This new world has the catchy name of LTT
1445Ab. All the stars you see in the sky of this planet
are red dwarfs in the second half of their lives, but the planet orbits only one of the
three. This star looks like a glowing red disc from
the surface of LTT 14…etc. As for the other two, they’re much further
from the planet and seem tiny and dark. An unprepared observer would probably take
them for two red, sinister eyes in the sky. Um, is that you, Sauron? Analyzing the data received from TESS, the
satellite, astronomers concluded that the newly discovered world is boiling-hot on the
surface, with temperatures rising as high as 320 degrees F. So, if you ever decide to
visit this planet, you'd probably want to avoid trying to get a tan. Also, the planet is rocky, really rocky -- more
than 8 times the mass of Earth, and a third bigger than our home planet. Oh, and it orbits its parent star much faster
than Earth goes around the Sun - it makes one full circle every 5 days. I should also mention here that Tess from
3rd grade was also really hot.. ah hem. Back to our story -- what excited researchers
the most, is the fact that LTT 14… look, I’ll just call it “Rocky” from here
on. Rocky seems to have an atmosphere! And that means that somewhere over there,
there may be extraterrestrial life! What's more, the chances are high that soon,
scientists will be able to confirm the existence of the atmosphere on the planet. Rocky is located relatively close to our planet
- just 22.5 light-years away, which is literally next door in space terms. And since the planet in question passes between
Earth and its stars, astronomers can catch a glimpse of the gases that might surround
the planet with the help of the telescopes based on Earth. Unfortunately, it's not possible to do right
now. And even though TESS the Satellite is great
at discovering new planets, it can't say for sure whether ET and his friends live there. That's why, after making sure that LTT…I
mean “Rocky” DOES have an atmosphere, scientists will have to send a deep space
probe to the planet to investigate. And still, astronomers are full of hope. Although the temperature on the planet seems
way too hot, there's still a chance that something (or somebody) has adapted to these nightmarish
conditions. It’s all good and well, and very promising,
but it got me wondering what our Earth would look like if there weren’t one, but two,
suns in the sky. Remember the planet of Tatooine, from the
"Star Wars" movies, the one that was Luke Skywalker's home planet? In September 2011, astronomers discovered
a world that eerily resembled Tatooine. The planet, dubbed Kepler-16b, consists of
half rock and ice and half gas, and orbits two closely located stars. So, how about an experiment? Let's replace Kepler-16b with Earth and see
how our planet fares, circling two suns at a time! First, the climate on the Tatooine-like planet
is quite chilly, even though it's closer to its parent stars than Earth is to the Sun. However, there's no mystery here: Kepler-16b's
stars are less bright than our Sun. That's why the temperature on the planet rarely
rises higher than minus 100 degrees F. But under the same stellar conditions, Earth would
be even frostier! Our planet would be freezing, because it would
be situated farther away from the stars than Kepler-16b. That means that all the water on Earth would
turn into ice, and it's unlikely that life would be able to develop in this glacial desert. Astronomers say that in this case, the only
living beings on Earth might be some advanced life forms that came from somewhere else and
managed to keep themselves warm after relocating to our planet. Then, since Earth would be orbiting two stars,
the year would become a bit longer. The thing is that the combined mass of the
two stars Kepler-16b circles is 10% less than the mass of our Sun. As a result, Earth would move on its orbit
more slowly, because the gravitational pull of the stars would be weaker. On the other hand, if Earth still had the
Moon, and its orbit was the same, the length of a day on the planet wouldn't differ from
the one we have these days. Now, the two new parent stars of our planet
would be about 7 million miles apart. That means that they would orbit each other
once every 10 days or so. Also, each of them would rotate in a 10-day
period, which is a bit faster than the rotation speed of our Sun. Anyway, if there were people on the two-suns
Earth, they would be able to observe a brand-new baffling phenomenon - an eclipse of the sun
caused by another sun! The stars would pass in front of each other
once every 5 days, and every time, the eclipse would last for about 6 hours! Interestingly, during the peak of the eclipse,
our planet would get from 30 to 40% less energy than normal. That's why the days of the eclipse would be
even chillier than the rest of the time on the planet. But the most amazing difference would be how
the sky would look from the surface of the planet. The two suns wouldn't look very big, but they
would be differently colored, and so close together they would almost look like they
were touching. And think of all those breathtaking sunsets:
astronomers are sure that they would be different every single day! By the way, have you heard that we might already
live in a solar system with two stars? Although this theory is far from being widely
accepted, it may explain some oddities in the Earth's history, such as mass extinctions
that happen too regularly for my liking. So, here's the idea: our Sun may have a companion,
a theoretical white or brown dwarf star called Nemesis. Good name. This star can influence the orbits of celestial
objects in the outer Solar System and send them on a collision course with Earth, causing
mass extinctions every now and then. For example, there were speculations that
Nemesis could even affect the Oort Cloud, a hypothetical region on the outskirts of
the Solar System, filled with icy rocks. Rocky! Nemesis could probably kick some of these
chunks out of their home cloud and send them hurling toward Earth. Wham-bam - a new mass extinction. Right now, astronomers can't find any evidence
that the dwarf star is accompanying our Sun somewhere up there. But according to a 2017 study, this star could
exist in the very, very ancient past. Admittedly, the existence of this sun, Nemesis
would shed light (unintentional pun) on some large-scale planetary catastrophes, but don't
forget that so far, it's just a theory. Hey! Do you have any other ideas on how several
suns instead of one would change life on Earth? Maybe harder to throw shade at someone…Let
me know down in the comments! If you learned something new today, then give
this video a like and share it with a friend. But – hey -- Tess, from 3rd grade -- don't
go anywhere just yet! We have over 2,000 cool videos for you to
check out. All you have to do is pick the left or right
video, click on it, and enjoy! Stay on the Bright Side of life!
