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This discovery was made possible thanks to one of the largest international observation campaigns in history, during which nearly 800 measurements were made by telescopes around the world, "a huge amount of information gathered for more than 20 years, "he explained. Efe Ignasi Ribas, of the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC-CSIC), who led an international collaboration.
"All these data allowed us to characterize Barnard's orbiting planetary system," the second system closest to us and in which, moreover, "we do not rule out that there may be more of planets ", explains the researcher.
But how is this system? The newly discovered planet depends on the star Barnard, a red dwarf 7,000 to 10,000 million years old, "almost twice as old as the Sun", relatively inactive and the fastest of the night sky.
Barnard B, christened in the honor of her hostess, puts about 233 days in orbit around her star and, although relatively close to her (at 40% of Tierra del Sol), the world is cold and dark that could be about -170 degrees Celsius.
Read more: "They discover a habitable planet" near our solar system "
"It's a cold world, because its star receives very little energy: only 2% of what the Earth gets from the Sun", and it is close to the "ice line", orbital zone around a star in which volatile compounds such as water can condense in solid ice.
Therefore, it is "very unlikely" that Barnard b has liquid water on the surface, but it can not be excluded that it has in the basement, explains Ribas.
Moreover, compared to Proxima b, considered the planet offering the best chance of living outside the solar system, it seems unlikely that this super-earth could contain any form of life, but "life sometimes finds ways to able to survive. " warns the Spanish physicist.
The discovery was made possible thanks to the Doppler technique, one of the many methods devised by astronomers to discover planets impossible to observe directly.
The technique searches the planets among the effects it causes on its star, because when a planet gravitates around a star, the gravitational attraction also causes its displacement.
Related note: "They identify exoplanets where life could be developed as on Earth"
"And according to physics, when a light source approaches the observer, its spectrum shifts slightly towards blue and its wavelength is shorter and, when it is Away from it, it turns red, at the longer wavelengths, so when we see a wobbling star (approaches and moves away), we can deduce that there is a planet in orbit, "says Ribas.
The discovery of the exoplanet, which is part of the Red Pots and CARMENES projects dedicated to finding planets near the solar system, has been made possible thanks to the high-precision measurements of telescopes around the world.
Among them, the famous spectrographs HARPS and UVES, two planetary hunters of the European Southern Observatory (ESO).
"HARPS played a pivotal role in this project, combining archival data from other teams with new and superimposed measurements of the Barnard star from different facilities," says Guillem Anglada Escudé. Queen Mary University in London.
"The combination of instruments was essential to be able to corroborate our results," says the Spanish astronomer who, moreover, led the discovery of Proxima b a few years ago.
More on the subject: "Discovered a Temperate Planet Just 11 Light-years from the Solar System"
And HARPS, which measures the speed changes of a star caused by an exoplanet orbiting it, is able to detect speed variations even at 3.5 km / h (a rate similar to that used during the walk).
The work used observations from seven different instruments that, over the last twenty years, took 771 measurements, a "huge amount" of information, Ribas pointed out.
"This discovery represents a significant progress in the search for exoplanets around our stellar neighbors, in the hope of finally finding an environment conducive to life", concludes the researcher at the Astronomical Institute of Andalusia and co- author of the work. Cristina Rodríguez-López.
During their work, they collaborated in the study of scientists from Spain, Chile, China, France, Germany, Israel, Poland, Switzerland, the United States and the United Kingdom. -United.
Source: EFE
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