Beyond Our Solar System, Is There an Earth 2.0? China Intends To Find It!

The Chinese are currently searching for a planet with Earth-like conditions, while Beijing is looking for a planet with life-supporting conditions. A mission to locate exoplanets outside our solar system is being planned by scientists. Planets in the habitable zone of their stars may be suitable in the Milky Way galaxy.

As per a report in the journal Nature, the Chinese Academy of Sciences has framed Earth 2.0, the mission’s name. This is still a relatively new mission. After a team of experts reviews the plan, this operation will take place in June. Once they have approved the plan, the mission’s development and funding phase will begin. Once the construction phase is complete, they will launch the satellite.

Seven telescopes will scan the sky for exoplanets as part of the mission. This is similar to NASA’s Kepler mission. “The Kepler field is low-hanging fruit as we have very solid information from it. In terms of sky-surveying capability, our satellite could be 1015 times more powerful than NASA’s Kepler telescope.”- Jian Lee, Lead Astronomer, Earth 2.0.

1.2 million stars will be analyzed by six of the seven telescopes over a 500-square-degree area of the sky. Earth 2.0 will be able to see more stars and galaxies than NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which is only able to see bright stars close to Earth.

A gravitational lensing telescope will be used to study rogue celestial bodies as the seventh instrument. Within the first few years of operation, Chinese scientists hope to discover at least a dozen Earth 2.0 planets.

A second mission to explore exoplanets, led by the European Space Agency, is scheduled to launch in 2026. Planetary Transits and Star Oscillations is the name of the mission (PLATO). PLATO will also have 26 telescopes and a much larger field of view than Earth 2.0, but it will rotate through different regions of space every two years.