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Astronomers have discovered a new exoplanet 145 light-years away from the constellation Virgo. Wolf 503b is a potential super-Earth. Here are the other reasons why astronomers find this planet interesting. ( NASA Goddard / Robert Simmon (Earth), NASA / JPL (Neptune) )
A team of scientists discovered an exoplanet twice as big as the Earth. The planet nicknamed Wolf 503b is located 145 light-years from our planet.
Discovery made with the help of Kepler Space Telescope data
Merrin Peterson, a graduate student at the University of Montreal's Exoplanet Research Institute, and his colleagues made the discovery using data from NASA's Kepler Space Telescope.
Peterson and his colleagues said that Wolf 503b is an interesting world, not only because of its size that makes it a potential super-Earth. The exoplanet in the constellation Virgo also revolves around its mother star every six days. Its proximity to its star is about 10 times closer than the distance between Mercury and our sun.
"Wolf 503b is one of the few planets with a radius near the gap that has a star bright enough to be studied in more detail, which will limit its true nature," says Björn Benneke, researcher at UdeM.
Researchers now have a chance to better understand the origin of this gap and the nature of the super-land and sub-neptune populations. Petersen stated that the nature study of Wolf 503b could shed more light on the structure of planets near the ray interval and on the diversity of exoplanets in the Milky Way galaxy.
"Wolf 503b offers a key opportunity to better understand the origin of this gap as well as the nature of the intriguing populations of" super-lands "and" sub-neptunes "as a whole," the researchers wrote in their study.
Main target for the James Webb Space Telescope
The researchers also stated that the star of the Wolf 503b system is relatively close to our planet and therefore appears very bright. Wolf 503 turns out to be an old orange dwarf slightly less luminous than our parent star.
The brightness of Wolf 503 makes it a prime target for the James Webb Space Telescope, which will be launched in March 2021.
A technique known as transit spectroscopy allows scientists to study the chemical content of the planet's atmosphere and to detect the presence of water molecules and hydrogen. These studies will be crucial to confirm whether the atmosphere of this world is similar to that of the Earth or completely different from the atmospheres of the solar system planets.
Similar observations are not possible with most planets found by Kepler because their host stars tend to be much weaker.
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