Five stars may have extraterrestrial life

An area with forming stars, 210,000 light-years from Earth, photographed by the Huble telescope : AFP

The five near stars in our Milky Way can be as lifeless as Earth and have the same civilizations as us, according to Margaret Turnbull, an American astronomer at the Carnegie Institution in Washington.

She chose these five stars between 120,000 stars of the Milky Way located near the solar system based on a number of criteria, such as the size, texture, age and color of stars that make them look like the sun. our.

These five stars are in the list of 10 stars Margaret recorded for the future project " Terrestrial Planet Finder / TPF " ( The Seeker of the Earth , to be launched in 2016) by the Aviation Authority. The US universe (NASA), with the goal of finding and observing planets similar to Earth.

Of the five stars: beta star CVn about 26 light-years away (one light-year is 9,500 billion km) in the constellation Canes Venatici; Pegasus star 51, famous since 1995 when considered the first planet discovered outside the solar system; the star of 16 Sco, in the constellation Scorpion near the center of the Milky Way, is considered the twin sister of the Sun . Considered the star may be a place for humans to live, a star must be of age at least 3 billion years. Mrs. Margaret Turnbull said this list is only an initial list, because it is difficult to rank stars according to the extent to which people can live there.

UA