Two Earth-like planets discovered 22/06/2019 – Posted in: Daily News

TWO EARTH-LIKE PLANETS DISCOVERED

 

For: Mains

Topics covered: About the two new planets, Teegarden’s star, Project Carmenes

 

News Flash

Scientists have discovered two new Earth-like planets around one of the closest stars within our galactic neighbourhood.

 

Highlights

  • Two planets similar to Earth have been discovered near Teegarden’s Star
  • The discovery is a big success for the Carmenes astronomical project.

 

Teegarden is the smallest star in which researchers have been successful so far in measuring the weight of a planet directly. “This is a great success for the Carmenes project, which was specifically designed to search for planets around the lightest stars.

The Carmenes project is currently carried out by the universities of Göttingen, Hamburg, Heidelberg, and Madrid, the Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie Heidelberg, Institutes Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas in Barcelona, Granada, and Madrid, Thüringer Landessternwarte, Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, and Calar-Alto Observatory.

 

Findings

  • The observations showed that two planets are orbiting the red dwarf star, both of them similar to the planets in the inner part of the Solar System.
  • The planets are located only 12.5 light years away orbiting the Teegarden star – a red dwarf in the direction of the constellation of Aries.
  • Its surface temperature is 2,700 degrees Celsius, and its mass is only one-tenth that of the Sun.
  • Both the planets are just a little bigger than the Earth and are situated in the ‘habitable zone’ where water can exist as a liquid.
  • It is possible that the two planets are part of a larger system.
  • Photometric campaigns on this star have been carried out with the Carlos Sanchez Telescope at the Teide Observatory in Spain, and with the network of telescopes of the Las Cumbres Observatory, among others.
  • The type of star to which the Teegarden star belongs consists of the smallest for which researchers can measure the masses of their planets with current technology.

 

Source: Hindustan Times

 

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