A team of scientists has discovered a possibly solar sibling of the sun that might have created from the same gas cloud around 4.6 billion years ago. This solar sibling expected to be the identical twin of our sun is being named HD 186302, and it is lying around 184 light years away. To spot this identical twin, researchers made use of data obtained from the AMBRE project and the European Space Agency's Gaia mission.
HD186302: The identical twin of sun
It should be noted that solar siblings are stars formed in the same massive stellar nursery, and these identical twins may share similar characteristics. Many experts believe that solar siblings might be potential candidates to search for alien life. As per these experts, most of the stars will have binary twins, but once they get scattered, it will be very difficult to locate them again.
"Since there isn't much information about the sun's past, studying these stars can help us understand where in the Galaxy and under which conditions the sun was formed," said Vardan Adibekyan at the Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço (IA) in Portugal, RT reports.
During the research, scientists analyzed various stars that match the sun's composition, the stars' age and kinematic properties. The study report published in the Journal Astronomy and Astrophysics revealed that only a single solar sibling was found during this research, and it is the HD 186302.
Why solar siblings are potential candidates to spot alien life?
Many experts believe that solar siblings could be the best place to search for alien life. As per these experts, there is a possibility that life forms could have been transported between planets around stars in the solar cluster, and this phenomenon is called interstellar lithopanspermia.
Vardan Adibekyan suggests that spotting a planet in the optimal zone orbiting around HD 186302 might be very crucial to spot extraterrestrial life.
"If we are lucky, and our sibling candidate has a planet, and the planet is a rocky type, in the habitable zone, and finally if this planet was 'contaminated' by the life seeds from Earth, then we have what one could dream – an Earth 2.0, orbiting a Sun 2.0," added Adibekyan.
A few weeks ago, a team of Hungarian scientists has confirmed that earth actually has not one, but three moons. Researchers who took part in this study revealed that these moons are entirely made up of dust.
