As the first film to open the 3D film market, "Avatar" has captured the hearts of many movie lovers as soon as it was broadcast with excellent visual effects. Today, this masterpiece that rewrote the market in that year is re-screened again, reminiscent of the beautiful and original, fascinating Pandora planet.
Pandora natives riding dragons
In the movie, there is a scene like this: behind the planet Pandora, a blue sphere appears.
What the hell is this behemoth?
Pandora is about the same size as Earth
In the film's setting, Pandora is a satellite, and the blue planet behind it is the planet it orbits, "Polypherimos".
Most of the planets in the solar system have their own moons, for example, the moon of the Earth is the moon. So, do planets outside the solar system have moons of their own? The moons and planets of Pandora and Polyphelmos in the film are set in the real-life star system South Gate II.
South Gate II is our closest star system
Polyphemus is set as a giant gaseous planet, similar to Jupiter, so it is generally thought to be impossible to have life, but on its moon Pandora, it is full of life.
Do you wonder if satellites that have always acted as "appendages" can also give birth to abundant life?
Glowing plants on the planet Pandora
The answer is yes.
Scientists have been paying attention to terrestrial planets for habitable planets. Such a planet would need to meet several basic requirements:
• The star is light-stable and provides stable and sustained energy
• Need to have a moderate volume and mass, with an atmospheric envelope on the surface
• Have a moderate distance to the stars to produce liquid water
• Stable trajectory to achieve a more regular day-night cycle
Conditions for a habitable planet
The earth we live on has good conditions for the existence of life, and astronomers have been looking for a "second earth". As the research progressed, experts found that some satellites were also livable, just like the early Earth!
Imagine such a huge gaseous planet in a habitable zone, firmly attracting a moon of similar size and mass to Mars, which may be a potential habitat for extraterrestrial life.
Range of habitable zones for different star systems
Even ice moons that are far away from their parent star, such as Enceladus in the solar system, may have life.
Animated simulation of Enceladus "spraying water"
Saturn's gravity tore through Enceladus' icy surface, and liquid water gushed out at speeds of more than a thousand kilometers per hour.
Deep-sea hydrothermal fluids beneath the ice may be a breeding ground for alien microbes.
Under-ice detection robot
Moreover, there are many exoplanets with the characteristics of giving birth to life, which means that the possibility of discovering extraterrestrial life has become more likely.
It can be said that where there are planets, there are satellites. There are hundreds of natural moons in the solar system alone, accompanying the planets. Not to mention how many unknowns will be hidden in other galaxies in the vast universe. To date, humans have discovered more than 4,000 exoplanets, some of which are supposed to be orbited by satellites.
An overview of the larger stars in the Solar System
Since the inference has theoretical support, does it mean that human beings already have the possibility of detecting exostars? But scientists are in trouble again: there are many exomoons, but they are in a "lost state" - the reality is that we have not found even one of the exolinks, why is this?
Scientists use "lingxing" to find exoplanets
It turns out that because these satellites are too "miniature", they are neither luminous nor radiant, and the radiation energy is also very weak, like the grit in the universe, and we can't receive their too weak signals.
Soon, the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope for infrared observations, will soon take off, perhaps opening up a new situation for capturing exosoluts, and the race to find the first exosolate and explore extraterrestrial life will be even more intense!
Discovery documentary
"A Thousand Worlds: A Perspective on the Great Universe: The Mystery of the Outer Satellites"
Broadcast platform: CCTV10
Air time: March 12, 2021 22:40
Stay tuned!