How’s life on a planet only dozens of light years away from us?
Chinese scientists have proposed a unique exploration program named the Closeby Habitable Exoplanet Survey (CHES) to search for habitable planets from “near neighbors” of the solar system.
It will offer crucial clues to the issues such as “Are we alone in the universe?” and “How can planets become the cradle of life?”
In this program, a 1.2-meter-aperture telescope will be sent into a Halo orbit at the second Lagrangian point of the Sun-Earth system. With the help of high-precision astrometry, it will survey about 100 Sun-like stars within 32 light years away from the solar system, and detect the number, planetary mass, and 3D orbits of the nearby planets.
What scientists call “nearby” is on a cosmic scale. It means a star along with its planets are within dozens of light years away from the solar system.
