The universe is filled up with infinite galaxies, planets and stars, majority of which are still unknown. However, adding one more planet to the ‘known’ list, scientists have confirmed the presence of an extremely cold ‘Super Earth’ around six light-years away.
A new study published in the journal Nature revealed the new planet called Barnard’s Star b. The planet, loaded with ice, is located approximately six light-years away from our sun and contains a temperature of 150 degrees Celsius below zero.
The planet has been dubbed ‘Super Earth’ because of its massive size, around 3.2 times of our Earth, but less than Uranus and Neptune. The planet orbits its star in every 233 Earth days at a distance where water would be frozen, called the ‘snow line’, reported Fox News.
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The planet was confirmed after combining 20 years worth of data from seven separate instruments. The host star Barnard’s Star’s discovery makes it the second closet red dwarf star to our Solar System, after Proxima Centauri, at around 30 trillion miles from Earth.
“After a very careful analysis, we are over 99% confident that the planet is there,” said lead author Ignasi Ribas.
The planet is located as far away from its host star as Mercury does from out sun, as discovered by the researchers. Barnard’s Star is itself a cool, low-mass red dwarf star and provides the newly discovered planet with only 2% of the energy that Sun provides Earth.
As of any signs of live thriving on the planet, it’s unlikely that there is any; the reason being the massive distance from the star. The planet might now even have an atmosphere or water presence because of its beyond freezing cold temperatures, as per Live Science.
Though the planet might not be a possible candidate for hosting life, the Super Earth is still an important subject for honing scientists’ exoplanet discovery, direct imaging, and monitoring techniques.
According to study co-author Cristina Rodríguez-López, “This discovery represents a boost to continue on searching for exoplanets around our closest stellar neighbors, in the hope that eventually we will come upon one that has the right conditions to host life.”