4 tiny, Earth-like planets found circling secod-closest star system to us

 

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

No Little Green Men On Earth-Sized Exoplanet

Image courtesy of Jan Skowron, Astronomical Observatory, University of Warsaw.

 Joel Kontinen

Earth like objects are unique. We consider them to float around their sun. Now, the biggest free-floting or rogue planets appeares to have been huge -  ”40 times the mass of Jupiter (one Jupiter is equivalent to about 300 Earths).”

 A discover, reported recently in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, may mark the smallest rogue planet ever detected, and it could help prove a long-standing cosmic theory.. According to the study authors, this little world could be the first real evidence that free-floating, Earth-sized planets may be some of the most common objects in the galaxy.

We would not like to see little green men on the planet, as have to be created.

 

Source:

Specktor, Brandon. 2020. An Earth-size planet is careening untethered through the galaxy, scientists find. Live Science  29 October