NASA discovered an alien planet dubbed K2-3d mission as a part of its K2 mission carried out by the Kepler's telescope. Now it is believe that the newly discovered planet may harbor alien or extraterrestrial life.
According to Daily Galaxy, a team of scientists from the University of Tokyo, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) and the Astrobiology Center are now reviewing the transit of the alien planet. The transit is being observed with the help of the MuSCAT instrument placed aboard Okayama Astrophysical Observatory 188-cm telescope.
A transit happens when the planet passes from the front of its parent star. As a result, a fraction of light from the star gets blocked. Transits of several planets have been observed so far. However, K2-3d planet is special because scientists believe that it may hold clues to extraterrestrial life.
The scientists, therefore, plan to use highly-specialized telescope to see the atmosphere of the planet. This would enable researchers to precisely identify molecules and gases related to life, such as oxygen.
K2-3d, an extrasolar planet, is located at a distance of 150 light years, is nearly 1.5 times the size of the planet Earth and has approximately the same temperature. It revolves around its parent star, which is nearly half the size of the sun. The total orbit period of the planet around it star is around 45 days.
NASA's K2 mission has so face identified several potentially habitable planets with transiting orbits. However, most of them are far away from Earth and as a result, appear fainter. This makes K2-3d a special object for the scientists to observe, because of its close proximity and brighter appearance from a telescope placed on Earth.
As of now, the scientists have observed that the decrease in brightness during transit if fractionally small. The team, however, plans to use more specialized telescopes in the future to establish a relationship between reduction in brightness and wavelength. This will enable them to study the composition of the planet's atmosphere.
