Image courtesy of International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/R. Proctor/J. Pollard
Joel Kontinen
A
new study reveals that four exoplanets, each about 20% to
30% the size of our planet, circle one of our closest stellar neighbour. The
rocky alien worlds are close enough that future generations of humans may be
able to visit them with futuristic rocket propulsion technology.
But we would
not find live in each of them.
“Astronomers have
long suspected that there was at least one exoplanet orbiting
Barnard's Star — a red dwarf with a mass around one-sixth that of the sun. At
5.97 light-years from Earth, it is the fourth-closest star to our solar
system, after the three interconnected stars of the Alpha Centauri system. (Five
potential planets have also been detected around the stars of Alpha
Centauri, though not all of them have been confirmed yet.)”
”But in a new
study, published March 11 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters,
researchers say they have discovered that this wobbling is not caused by the
pull of one gas giant but instead by the combined force exerted by four
smaller, rocky worlds, each around four times more massive than as they are so
close to their sun, they are probably not habitable..
But as the planets are too close to the sun, they probably
are not habitable,
Source:
Harry Baker 2025 4 tiny, Earth-like planets found circling 2nd-closest star system to us — and could be visited by future human generations | Live Science 19 March
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