These Planets That Are Similar to Jupiter and Neptune Are Found Orbiting Around a Sun-Like Star

Amaze Lab

Finding a world like Earth elsewhere in the universe might mean looking for the right kind of solar system. A new discovery sheds light on what composition of planets might be necessary to support life.

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00:00Ever wondered exactly what it would take for life to exist on some other planet in the

00:08universe? An Earth-like world is only the beginning. Scientists believe a solar system

00:14like ours, with its particular makeup of planets and other rocky bodies, is also vitally important,

00:21Science Alert reports. The discovery of a pair of worlds around a star eerily similar

00:27to our own sun could be the closest we've come to finding such a system, even if it's

00:33175 light years away. Astronomers peering through the European Southern Observatory's

00:39La Silla telescope identified two gas giants in its orbit, one a Jupiter analogue and the

00:47other a super Neptune weighing around 43 Earths, both in the optimistic habitable zone, a distance

00:54their host star that is just within a habitable temperature. The star HIP 104045 is a dead

01:04ringer for our own sun in terms of age, mass, radius and luminosity. Though the super Neptune

01:11orbits a little too close for comfort, it's not impossible that a small rocky world brimming

01:17with alien life could be hiding nearby. Within our solar system, scientists believe, Jupiter

01:23plays an important role by shielding us from rocky bombardment. It may have also been instrumental

01:29in helping other rocks reach Earth during its early formation, delivering ingredients essential

01:35for life. The findings submitted to the monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society give

01:41scientists a better understanding of the compositions of planetary systems necessary to

01:46support life. So far, we're like nothing else in the known universe, the only one of our kind.

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