Astronomers have found the closest rocky planet outside our solar system using the Spitzer Space telescope.
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Although it is our nearest rocky neighbor, it likely can’t support life, according to NASA. It’s known as GJ674b and while it’s only 14.8 light-years away, not much is known about its composition. The star it orbits is visible to the naked eye however, if you peer towards the Cassiopeia constellation near the North Star.
“Transiting exoplanets are value their weight in gold as a result of they are often extensively characterised”, stated Spitzer mission scientist Michael Werner.
HD 219134b is transiting, NASA speak for crossing in front of its star, which makes it ideal for scientists to study. This will allow scientists to employ powerful tools on the ground as well as in space to characterize it.
Batalha explained that between 15 and 25 percent of stars in the galaxy are circling around the habitable zone or those who orbit around a star far enough to have a temperature that can sustain life, reported Northern Californian.
The exoplanet is a mere 21 light-years away and is larger than Earth – although it can’t be seen directly, even by telescope. “This one is practically a next-door neighbour”, said study co-author Lars A. Buchhave of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
This sky map shows the location of the exoplanet’s host star (circles in yellow).
HARPS-North and its sister instrument HARPS in Chile look for planets by precisely measuring the colour of a star.
The planet has a mass 4.5 times that of Earth’s and is approximately 60% larger, putting it in a class of exoplanets – a term for planets that orbit a star, stellar remnant or brown dwarf beyond the solar system – known as “super Earths”. The gravity of a planet tugs on a star as it orbits, pulling it toward and away from a distant observer on Earth.
Follow-up studies using NASA’s Spitzer telescope showed that the new planet has a diameter 1.6 times that of Earth. Any of these planets might also transit the star, so the team plans to search for additional transits in the months ahead.
This planet will be studied in great detail in the coming years.
It could be considered a kind of Rosetta Stone for the study of super-Earths, he added.
That star is an orange “Type K” star slightly cooler and smaller than the Sunday. Small, tightly packed multi-planet systems are completely different from our own solar system, but, like super-Earths, are being found in increasing numbers.
One possible appearance for the planet HD 219134b is seen in this artist’s image. The planet is 1.6 times the size of Earth, and whips around its star in just three days.
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The planet, thought to have a molten, rocky surface, moves around its star every three days.
