Astronomers have found a planet around Barnard ’s star , the close single star to the Sun . It is the 4th closest star topology overall , after the three stars in the Alpha Centauri system , which already have planets around Proxima Centauri . Still , this newfangled world is very exciting .
It is estimated to be half the mass of Venus , making it one of the few exoplanets smaller than Earth . There will of course be slew of other minor planets – it ’s just difficult to see them . There was atentative detectionaround Barnard ’s star in 2018 , but it took many years of observation with the European Southern Observatory ’s Very Large Telescope to get this faint signal , even from a star that is comparatively next threshold to us .
“ Even if it took a long time , we were always positive that we could find something , ” lead generator Jonay González Hernández , a investigator at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias in Spain , say in astatement .
The team conducted watching to hopefully find a planet in the habitable zona of this star . Being a cerise gnome and so cool than our Sun , the habitable zone is much closer . However , the new satellite Barnard b is a little fleck too tight , orbit the star every 3.15 Earth Clarence Shepard Day Jr. . It is estimated to have a surface temperature of 125 ° C ( 257 ° F ) , a bit too hot for the habitable zone requirements .
“ Barnard b is one of the modest - deal exoplanets known and one of the few known with a mass less than that of Earth . But the satellite is too close to the master of ceremonies lead , faithful than the inhabitable zona , ” explained González Hernández . “ Even if the star is about 2500 degrees cooler than our Sun , it is too red-hot there to maintain liquid water on the aerofoil . ”
Still , there ’s promise for more planets around this star . There have been more tentative detection but the team is not yet ready to call them uncovering . Barnard ’s whizz is too dim to be see with the bare oculus despite its tightfistedness , and planets are a lot more difficult to name .
“ We now require to remain notice this superstar to substantiate the other campaigner signals , ” added Alejandro Suárez Mascareño , also a investigator at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias and co - source of the study . “ But the discovery of this major planet , along with other previous discoveries such as Proxima b and d , shows that our cosmic backyard is full of downcast - mass planets . ”
The subject field is put out inAstronomy & Astrophysics .
