Astronomers "lost" A Planet From Which A Strange Signal Was Received

Video: Astronomers "lost" A Planet From Which A Strange Signal Was Received

Video: Astronomers "lost" A Planet From Which A Strange Signal Was Received
Video: 10 Scariest Signals Received From Space 2024, March
Astronomers "lost" A Planet From Which A Strange Signal Was Received
Astronomers "lost" A Planet From Which A Strange Signal Was Received
Anonim

At a meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Turin, an employee of the Geneva Observatory, Francesco Pepe, said that his group had not been able to confirm the existence of the planet Gliese 581 g.

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Recall that at the end of last month, American astronomers reported the discovery of Gliese 581 g, the fifth - and most interesting - planet in the red dwarf Gliese 581 system. the radius is not too much different from the Earth.

Scientists were helped to find Gliese 581 g by observation data of the star made with the HIRES spectrometer of the Hawaiian Keck I telescope. For 11 years of HIRES operation, astronomers have carried out 122 measurements of the star's radial velocity. Another 119 readings collected over 4, 3 years, the researchers "borrowed" from colleagues who used the HARPS spectrometer installed on a 3, 6-meter telescope in the Chilean observatory of La Silla.

And now Mr. Pepe told about the results of processing the HARPS data array, expanded to 180 samples, accumulated over six and a half years. "This amount of information allows us to easily distinguish four known exoplanets in the system: Gliese 581 b, c, d and e," the astronomer says. At the same time, scientists did not find statistically significant evidence of the existence of Gliese 581 g and the sixth exoplanet, Gliese 581 f.

“The fact is that the amplitude of the signal corresponding to the fifth planet is small, and it is very difficult to distinguish it against the background of noise,” the speaker explains. Modeling carried out by Mr. Pepe's group has shown that the probability of "accidental" occurrence of a signal is quite high and is measured in units of percent. “This fact does not allow us to confirm the existence of Gliese 581 g,” concludes Francesco Pepe.

American group spokesman Paul Butler declined to comment on the statement, citing the fact that he was not present at the meeting in Turin, and the new HARPS data has not yet been released. “I think there needs to be more observation here, and in a year or two it will be cleared up,” says Mr. Butler.

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