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Scientists have developed a new tool in the search for habitable planets in other solar systems by measuring the surface gravity of stars too distant to study with conventional methods.
The new method has been developed by researchers at the University of British Columbia in Canada and University of Vienna in Austria. It will enable scientists to measure surface gravity with an accuracy of about four percent for stars that are too distant and too faint for the application of current gravity measurement techniques.
The new technique will help in the study of planets distant from the solar system by enabling astronomers to better assess their masses and sizes. “Our technique can tell you how big and bright is the star, and if a planet around it is the right size and temperature to have water oceans, and maybe life,” says Jaymie Matthews, co-author of the study published in the journal Science Advances.
Matthews, a professor of astronomy at the University of British Columbia, says that “if you find a planet around a star that you think is Sun-like but is actually a giant, you may have fooled yourself into thinking you’ve found a habitable Earth-sized world.”
Conventional methods can help scientists measure surface gravity of bright stars that are comparatively close by, but that excludes nearly one billion trillion stars and their planet systems.
“The timescale technique is a simple but powerful tool that can be applied to the data from these searches to help understand the nature of stars like our Sun and to help find other planets like our Earth,” says the study’s lead author, Thomas Kallinger from the University of Vienna.
Agencies/Canadajournal
