PARIS: Astronomers reported on Tuesday that they had found a unique exoplanet, smaller than Earth, orbiting one of the stars nearest to the Sun, despite the fact that its surface is much too hot to support life.
Over a period of five years, the Very Large Telescope in the Chilean desert conducted observations that revealed the planet orbiting Barnard’s Star, which is located merely six light years distant.
The “Goldilocks zone” is the region outside our solar system where liquid water can exist, which is thought to be a necessary component of extraterrestrial life. Astronomers were searching for planets in this zone.
This habitable zone is not where the recently found exoplanet, known as Barnard b, is located. Its distance from its red dwarf star is twenty times that of Mercury from our Sun. There are only three Earth days in a year on the globe.
As per a recent study detailing the discovery, its surface temperature is a scorching 125 degrees Celsius (257 degrees Fahrenheit). According to researcher Jonay Gonzalez Hernandez of Spain’s Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, “Barnard b is one of the lowest-mass exoplanets known and one of the few known with a mass less than that of Earth.”
Lead author Gonzalez Hernandez stated, “Even if the star is about 2,500C cooler than our Sun, it is too hot there to maintain liquid water on the surface.” The new study was published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Ophiuchus is the constellation in which Barnard’s Star is situated. It is the nearest star to our Sun, 4.2 light years away, after the three stars in the Alpha Centauri system.
Because it revolves around a red dwarf star, exoplanet seekers are also interested in it. Compared to other stars, red dwarfs have a much lower temperature.
