Scientists will use FAST to look for magnetic fields on exoplanets—a sign life could exist there.
China has unveiled its latest plans for the world's biggest radio telescope—to look for habitable planets beyond our solar system by finding out if they have a magnetic field., the team behind the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope has announced its ambitions for the next decade—including the hunt for exoplanets.
One of the main scientific missions of FAST is to listen out for pulsars and other interstellar radio signals—including any coming from hypothetical extraterrestrials."In theory, if there is civilization in outer space, the radio signal it sends will be similar to the signal we can receive when a pulsar is approaching us," Qian Lei, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told CCTV in 2016.
But in their latest publication, FAST researchers from China and France said they are planning to look for exoplanets within 100 light years from Earth with magnetic fields. The team believes that because Earth's magnetic field provides protection to life on the planet, it is reasonable to think the same may be true on other distant worlds."There is a scientific bug in the sci-fi blockbusterthat is, the Earth stops rotating. If that happens, the magnetic field would disappear," FAST chief scientist Li Di told Xinhua."Without the protection of the magnetic field, the Earth's atmosphere would be blown off by the solar wind.
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