Artist’s
impression of Barnard’s star b, a planet in orbit around Barnard’s star
ESO/M. Kornmesser
Joel Kontinen
Astronomers have detected an exoplanet around
Barnard’s star, one of the sun’s closest neighbours, but it is too hot for
liquid water or life.
Life in a nearby
planet?
One of the sun’s closest neighbours, Barnard’s star,
appears to have at least one planet orbiting it, as well as another three
possible planets that need further confirmation.
Astronomers have
been looking for planets aroud and Barnard’s star, which at 5.96 light years
away is the next-closest star to us after the three stars in the Alpha
Centauri system, since the 1960s.
In 2018,
researchers claimed to have found a planet that was at least three
times larger than Earth, which they called Barnard’s star b, but a follow-up
analysis showed that the signals of the apparent planet were actually caused by
higher than expected stellar activity.
Now, Jonay
Hernández at the Canary Islands Institute of Astrophysics and his
colleagues say they have found a new Barnard’s star b, which is around 40 per
cent as massive as Earth.
The planet is much closer to its star than any planets
in our solar system, completing an orbit in just over three Earth days. This
also means its surface is too hot for liquid water or life, with a temperature
of around 125°C (257°F).
So the scientist
are are claiming that the planet is too hot for liquid water and life.
Source:
Alex Wilkins
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