IOI
China, which is known for its scientific prowess and audacious missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond, has plans to explore even further and deeper into space. Beijing is currently looking for a new location to call home — Earth 2.0, if you will.
Beijing is preparing a mission to search for exoplanets outside of our solar system. The major purpose of this project is to locate a world in the Milky Way galaxy that is in the habitable zone of its star. The effort, dubbed Earth 2.0, intends to identify a planet comparable to the one we currently inhabit, which is also expected to face catastrophic events in the following decades.
According to a study in Nature, the Chinese Academy of Sciences has conceptualised Earth 2.0, which is currently in the design phase. In June, a panel of experts will assess the planned mission, and if it is approved, the development phase will begin, which will bring in financing to begin the satellite’s construction phase.
Perspective on the unknown
The telescope will search for exoplanets far beyond our solar system in the hopes of discovering chemical signals that could lead to the emergence of life. The mission will be outfitted with seven telescopes that will scan an area of sky comparable to the one studied by the Kepler mission, according to the report.
“We have really good data from the Kepler field, so it’s low-hanging fruit.” In terms of sky-surveying capability, our spacecraft might be 1015 times more powerful than Nasa’s Kepler telescope,” Jian Ge, Earth 2.0’s principal astronomer, told Nature. The transit method will be used by the spacecraft, which will detect slight fluctuations in the brightness of the star that suggest a planet has passed in front of it.
The mission’s six telescopes will study 1.2 million stars over a 500-square-degree piece of sky, as well as viewing fainter and farther-away stars than NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). A gravitational microlensing telescope, comparable to Neptune or Pluto, will be the spacecraft’s seventh instrument for examining rogue planets far from their star.
Earth 2.0 enclosed by the stars?
Nasa has discovered nearly 5000 worlds in the Milky Way galaxy, making it the largest inventory of exoplanets outside of our Solar System ever to be discovered. When it comes to composition and properties, the 5000 exoplanets identified so far span a wide spectrum. Small, rocky worlds like Earth, gas giants many times Jupiter’s size, and hot Jupiters in scorching close orbits around their stars are all examples.
“Super-Earths,” which are hypothetical rocky worlds larger than our own, and “mini-Neptunes,” which are tiny counterparts of our system’s Neptune, are among the vast list. Within the first five years of operation, the Chinese team wants to uncover at least a dozen Earth 2.0 planets.
“We’ll be dealing with a lot of data, so we’ll need all the help we can get.” Jian Ge told Nature, “Earth 2.0 offers an opportunity for better worldwide collaboration.”
Exoplanet-hunting missions are being planned by several countries, including Europe and the United States. When it starts operating in a few months, the James Webb Space Telescope, which was launched last year, will be the most advanced observatory, gazing deeper into the universe, farther and with more clarity than the Hubble telescope.
