The individual close star to the Sun — which is to say , the close star propel independent from a star system — has at least one exoplanet , according to a team of astronomers that recently scrutinized the heavenly consistence .
The squad ’s enquiry — publishedtoday in Astronomy & Astrophysics — describes conclusion made from five long time of observational datum taken with the European Southern Observatory ’s Very Large Telescope at Chile ’s Paranal Observatory .
The little world revolve Barnard ’s wiz , a blood-red dwarf about six light - year from Earth . Barnard ’s star is a subdued , nerveless star about one - one-seventh the mass of our Sun . Unlike the nearest star to the Sun ( Proxima Centauri , a little over four wanton - years off in the Alpha Centauri star scheme ) , Barnard ’s star zips through the universe alone . AsEarthSky direct out , Barnard ’s star is much less potent than the Sun ; if we orbited that ace instead of the Sun , living as we know it would not be possible .
An artist’s impression of the exoplanet orbit Barnard’s star.Illustration: ESO/M. Kornmesser
The same could be said for the mettlesome exoplanet , but in the opposite direction as a thermometer reads . The star — dubbed Barnard b — is about twenty multiplication closer to its host star than Mercury is to our Sun , and whips around Barnard ’s star in just over three Earth day . hold its celestial proximity , the exoplanet is intelligibly piping , with a surface temperature around 257 ° Fahrenheit ( 125 ° Celsius ) .
“ Barnard b is one of the crushed - the great unwashed exoplanets have it away and one of the few have it off with a spate less than that of Earth , ” said Jonay González Hernández , a researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias in Spain and the study ’s lead writer , in an ESOrelease .
Barnard ’s virtuoso was previously distrust to host exoplanets in its orbit — there waspromising evidence in 2018 , but no sealed confirmation — until now .
The squad was look for exoplanets orbiting Barnard ’s star that may exist within the habitable ( or “ Goldilocks ” ) zone , a space from a host star where swimming pee can exist on a satellite ’s surface . It does not , so life as we know it ca n’t live on the exoplanet .
“ The find of this satellite , along with other previous discovery such as Proxima b and d , picture that our cosmic backyard is full of down - mess planets , ” said study co - writer Alejandro Suárez Mascareño , a researcher also at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias , in the same waiver .
In its raw paper , the team also stated that there is grounds of at least three more exoplanet candidate around Barnard ’s star , though more observations will be necessary to confirm whether any of those candidates are literal exoplanets .
The next - propagation Extremely Large Telescope , alongside missions like the Webb Space Telescope and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite ( TESS ) will hopefully cede more discoveries of these not - so - distant alien worlds .
Orbitred dwarfsthe Sun
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