An international team of astronomers from China and the United States has discovered a new exoplanet that looks like Earth billions of years ago.
Oku.AzAccording to the report, the results of the related research were published in the scientific journal “Nature Astronomy” (“NatAstro”).
The celestial body called “KMT-2020-BLG-0414” is located 4,000 light years from Earth and is a rocky world orbiting a white dwarf, an extinct star. Our Sun is expected to become a white dwarf after 5 billion years.
By then, the Sun will have expanded and gone through a red giant phase, engulfing Mercury, Venus, and possibly even Earth and Mars. If our world survives this period, it will look like “KMT-2020-BLG-0414”.
Observations have shown that KMT-2020-BLG-0414 is at a distance from its white dwarf star, one to two times the distance between Earth and the Sun. The system also contains a brown dwarf, a non-luminous star about 17 times the mass of Jupiter.
Scientists have noted that life on Earth will likely disappear long before the Sun becomes a white dwarf. In approximately one to two billion years, Earth’s oceans will dry out due to the accelerating greenhouse effect. Researchers believe that by then humanity will have migrated to other worlds.
