The image of Earth 5 billion years into the future has been represented through a number of newly discovered special exoplanets.
An international team of scientists led by the Institute for Astronomy (IfA) at the University of Hawaii (USA) has published a new catalog featuring 120 confirmed exoplanets (planets outside our Solar System) and 6 objects suspected to be exoplanets.
The newly discovered exoplanets from the recent survey – (Image: TESS/KECK).
This vast new “treasure” of worlds was discovered using NASA’s exoplanet hunter TESS, a satellite-like spacecraft orbiting Earth, as well as the WM Keck Observatory located in Hawaii.
According to a paper published in the scientific journal The Astrophysical Journal Supplement, the survey revealed an astonishing diversity of strange world forms in the universe.
The aforementioned 120 planets include several gas giants similar in size to Jupiter, Saturn, or Neptune.
Among them, the most numerous are the “mini Neptunes,” a type of small gas planet not found in our Solar System.
They also include some of the most extreme planets ever known, such as the planet orbiting the star TOI-1824, which is the densest mini Neptune ever recorded.
Mini Neptune orbiting the star TOI-1824 – (Image: SCITECH DAILY).
Interestingly, there are 16 rocky planets—those similar to Earth, Venus, Mars, and Mercury—that have been confirmed.
Among these 16 worlds, some orbit around “red giant stars.” And these are the planets that represent the future image of Earth.
The gas planets orbiting these stars at a distant range could represent the future of Jupiter, Saturn, and other planets located in the outer regions of the Solar System.
“The Sun will eventually expand into a giant star after it has fused all the hydrogen in its core,” explained astronomer Ashley Chontos from IfA.
Scientists have long predicted that this will occur in about 5 billion years, and this red giant star has the potential to engulf some of the rocky planets closest to it, including Mercury, Venus, and possibly even Earth.
With the new planets orbiting red giant stars at various stages, scientists now have the opportunity to directly observe how these star systems evolve.
These pieces will come together to form a complete theory to depict the future of planets in the Solar System, especially our Earth.
