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Barnard's Star, a red dwarf star located in a solar system about six light-years away from Earth, could have company.
Researchers in the "exoplanet hunting" group, Red Dots, have detected a planet – about 3.2 times the mass of the Earth and very cold – in orbit around the star, Smithsonian reports. Their conclusions have been published in Nature Wednesday.
"We firmly believe that the object is there," said Ignasi Ribas, principal investigator. "We must always stay a little cautious … but we were pretty sure we were prepared to go ahead with the publication." The planet, Barnard's Star B, is the second largest exoplanet (a planet in the world). outside our solar system) closest to the Earth. , by United States today.
Researchers examined two decades of data from seven different telescopes to capture the planet, according to Forbes. Regarding the possibility of life on Bernard's Star b, the planet is "way too cold" to maintain liquid water, said Ribas, and the question of whether life can be frozen under an ocean is that speculation at this point.
During their study, Smithsonian notes, the researchers found weak evidence of another planet, which would be Barnard's star c. Several decades ago, scientists thought to have detected planets around the star. However, these ended up being the result of an instrument problem.
(Last year, scientists found the smallest star possible.)
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