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Notimex / The Voz of Michoacán
Mexico A group of researchers from the Superior Council of Scientific Research (CSIC) discovered a supertierra orbiting the star Barnard, the second closest star system to Earth.
This is the first time that astronomers are discovering this type of exoplanet, by the radial velocity method. "After a careful analysis, we are 99% sure that the planet is present," said the study director published in the magazine "Nature", Ignasi Ribas.
The Barnard star of the red dwarf type is six light years away from the "blue planet".
However, to confirm this finding, the scientist said that more information was needed, as natural variations in stellar brightness caused by sunspots could produce effects similar to those detected.
Using high precision spectrometers such as CARMENES, at the Calar Alto observatory, scientists used the technique that uses the effect of starlight to measure evolution the speed of an object in line of sight in time.
When an object moves away from us, the light we observe becomes slightly less energetic and redder. On the contrary, when the star approaches us, the light becomes more energetic and bluish, "said Ignasi Ribas.
He explained that after re-analyzing all the combined measurements, a clear signal appeared over a period of 233 days, which implies that the Barnard star approaches and moves away to approximately 1.2 meters per second.
The best explanation for this phenomenon is that a planet gravitates around the star, "he said in a statement from the CSIC.
The candidate planet was named Barnard b or GJ 699b, a supertierra of a minimum mass of 3.2 land masses, which revolves around its host every 233 days near the snow line, a distance where the water freezes.
In the absence of atmosphere, it is likely that the temperature of this exoplanet is minus 170 degrees Celsius; It is therefore unlikely that the planet can have liquid water on the surface.
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