Revealing "Miniature Earth" only 6 light years away

(NLDO) - Planet Barnard b weighs only 37% of Earth's mass and is described as a rare astronomical treasure.

According to Sci-News, a research team led by Dr. Jonay González Hernández from the Institute of Astrophysics of Canarias (Spain) has identified a "miniature Earth" orbiting the single star closest to the Sun, named Barnard.

Barnard is a 10-billion-year-old red dwarf star, and the new planet—named Barnard b—orbits Barnard at just 1/20th the Sun-Mercury distance.

"Miniature Earth" Barnard b orbits a red dwarf star less than 6 light years away - Photo: ESO

With a mass just 37% that of Earth and about half that of Venus, Barnard b is the smallest exoplanet yet identified.

Because it is a rocky planet, scientists describe Barnard b as a "miniature Earth".

It's its modest mass and size that make Barnard b a rare astronomical treasure.

The distances between star systems are so vast that, despite our advanced observational tools, finding small planets around other stars is extremely difficult. Even finding rocky planets the size of Earth is a major challenge. Most known exoplanets are gas giant worlds .

Barnard b is therefore a great opportunity for scientists to study how small rocky planets form and evolve. Its star system is only 5.96 light-years from Earth, so research should be quite convenient.

Diagram showing the positions of the nearest stars around the Sun, including Barnard, which is just beyond the star pair Alpha Centauri A&B - Photo: IEEC

To find this “miniature Earth,” researchers had to sift through data from five years of observations by the ESPRESSO instrument on the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT), located at the Paranal Observatory in Chile.

While the authors will study Barnard b further, they do not expect to find life there.

The planet is so close to its star that it takes just 3.15 days to orbit it. So even though the red dwarf Barnard b is 2,500 degrees Celsius cooler than the Sun, the temperature on Barnard b would still be too hot to sustain liquid water.

In addition to Barnard b, scientists have also identified suspected signs of three other exoplanets orbiting this red dwarf star.

Research on "Miniature Earth" has just been published in the scientific journal Astronomy & Astrophysics .

Source: https://nld.com.vn/lo-dien-trai-dat-thu-nho-cach-chung-ta-chi-6-nam-anh-sang-196241003100508298.htm