How many light years are astronomers from the suspected "next earth"?

"Proxima B" is the closest known livable exoplanet to the Earth, but astronomers have recently discovered that a planet named "Ross 65438+1 28b" which is1light-year away from the Earth is approaching, and it is expected that it will take its place after 79,000 years.

Using the high-precision radial velocity planet searcher (HARPS) of the European Southern Observatory, the research team found the second most livable planet "Ross 128b" near the red dwarf star "Ross128". It is about the size of the earth, and its surface temperature may be close to that of the earth.

Red dwarfs are very common stars in the universe, with low surface temperature and weak brightness, which are favored by astronomers when exploring exoplanets. However, compared with the sun, many red dwarfs are unstable, and their flare activities are so intense that their daughter stars are sometimes "bathed" in deadly ultraviolet rays and X-rays.

The red dwarf "Ross 128" is different and very "quiet". Therefore, although the orbit of its satellite "Ross 128b" is much closer than that of the earth around the sun, its radiation is only 1.38 times that of the earth, which makes it a "seed player" who may find extraterrestrial life.

At present, the search for extraterrestrial life is mainly concentrated in the "livable zone", that is, within a certain distance around the star, the surface temperature of the planet can allow liquid water to exist. Since the surface temperature of the parent star is only half that of the sun, the theoretical surface temperature of "Ross 128b" is expected to be between minus 60 degrees Celsius and 20 degrees Celsius, but whether it is in the "livable zone" needs to be further determined.