Scientists find new solar system that could be home to alien life

Scientists have found a new planetary system of two distant worlds – which could serve as a home to alien life.

The two planets are in orbit around a small, cool star named LP 890-9. It is the second-coolest star to be found hosting planets, after the similarly intriguing TRAPPIST-1.

One of the system’s planets is known as LP 890-9b, and is just 30 per cent bigger than Earth. It is so close to that cool star that a year takes just 2.7 days.

And the system has another, entirely unknown planet, which has been named LP 890-9c. The planet is similarly sized to the first – it is 40 per cent bigger than Earth – but a longer year, taking 8.5 days to make its way around the star.

The new research was undertaken using ground-based telescopes named Speculoos – Search for habitable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars. Very cold stars like LP 890-9b require this kind of follow-up observations because space telescopes can find it hard to spot them.

Scientists had begun the new observations with the hope of confirming the existence of the first planet, which was first spotted as a potential world by Nasa’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, which looks for planets outside of our solar system. But the observations also found that second planet.

That latter planet is within the star’s “habitable zone”, meaning that it is neither too hot or cold for alien life.

“The habitable zone is a concept under which a planet with similar geological and atmospheric conditions as Earth, would have a surface temperature allowing water to remain liquid for billions of years” said Amaury Triaud, a professor of Exoplanetology at University Birmingham and the leader of the Speculoos working group that scheduled the observations leading to the discovery of the second planet.

“This gives us a license to observe more and find out whether the planet has an atmosphere, and if so, to study its content and assess its habitability.”