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BEIJING, Feb. 20 (Xinhuanet) -- An astronomer in the
United States has identified five stars in the galaxy which she says are most
likely to have earth-like planets that might support E.T. -- extraterrestrial
intelligent life.
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| The 51 Pegasus in the Great
Square of Pegasus, one of the top 5 target
stars. | Margaret Turnbull of
the Carnegie Institution of Washington released the catalogue of "habitable
zones" at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science in St. Louis.
The lineup is broken down into two top-five lists:
one for the radio-based search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, and
the other for the NASA mission, known as the Terrestrial Planet Finder.
The SETI is to be carried out this spring by the
nonprofit SETI Institute with the Allen Telescope Array -- a network of 42 radio
receivers under construction in California. The Terrestrial Planet Finder,
scheduled for launch in 2015, is threatened by the Bush Administration's plans
to cut NASA's budget next year.
In her work, Turnbull looked for stars not too large
and not too young and with a nice mix of iron and other metals. In other words,
she went looking for stars similar to our own sun.
"These are places I'd want to live if God were to put our
planet around another star," she said.
Her number one candidate is Beta CVn, 26 light-years away
and visible to the naked eye in the Hound Dogs constellation. Another top five
Habstar is 51 Pegasus, which became famous in 1995 when astronomers discovered
the first planet outside the solar system in its orbit. Enditem
(Agencies) | 
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