The astrophysicist spoke about the process of searching for extraterrestrial life

Astrophysicist Tsurikov: 35 exoplanets have been discovered so far

Sat, 04/11/2026 - 04:40

Photo: Global Look Press/Reid Wiseman/Nasa

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The discovery of terrestrial exoplanets in the habitable zone and the development of technologies for studying them increase the chances of humanity discovering extraterrestrial life. Grigory Tsurikov, a researcher at the Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Candidate of Physico-Mathematical Sciences, told Izvestia about this.

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"To date, about 35 exoplanets of the Earth type have been discovered within 100 parsecs (a unit of measurement in intergalactic spaces, 1 parsecs is about 31 trillion km — editor's note), which are located in the habitable zone. This is only a small percentage compared to the total number of discovered exoplanets — more than 6 thousand," the expert noted.

According to him, further detection of such objects will increase the likelihood of finding life outside the Solar System, and the launch of new telescopes will make it possible to study their atmospheres for the presence of biomarker molecules.

"This task will be included in the scientific program of the planned launch of the Russian Spektr-UV space telescope, which is being created at the Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The detection of biomarker molecules in the atmospheres of exoplanets will make it possible to conclude that they are habitable," explained Tsurikov, adding that this will be an important step in the exploration of deep space.

Separately, Tsurikov emphasized the role of modern data analysis technologies. Machine learning and artificial intelligence methods can significantly speed up scientific research if tasks are set correctly.

At the same time, the expert warned about the risks associated with the unfair use of large language models, including for the creation of falsified scientific publications. According to him, peer-reviewed journals, including RAS publications, already have mechanisms to identify such cases at the examination stage.