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Image of representation
A "super-Earth" discovered orbiting a star located 16 light-years away from us could be the famous Vulcan planet of Star Trek, home to the beloved character of Spock, taken from the popular TV series .
The discovery was made using the Dharma Endowment Foundation Telescope (DEFT), a 50-inch telescope located atop Mount Lemmon in southern Arizona, United States.
The planet is the first "super-Earth" detected by the Dharma Survey.
The creators of Star Trek have associated the Vulcan planet with a real star, called 40 Eridani A. Scientists from the University of Florida (UF) and Tennessee State University (TSU) in the United States have discovered that the star is home to at least one planet.
"The new planet is a" super-Earth "gravitating around the star HD 26965, only 16 light-years from Earth, making it the nearest super-Earth to another star , "said Jian Ge, astronomer at UF. who led the study.
"The planet is about twice the size of the Earth and revolves around its star with a 42-day period just inside the optimum habitable zone of the star," Ge.
"This star can be seen with the naked eye, unlike the stars of most known planets discovered so far.Now everyone can see 40 Eridani on a clear night and be proud to show Spock's house ", said Bo Ma. author of the study published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
The orange tinted HD 26965 is only slightly colder and slightly less massive than our Sun, is approximately the same age as our Sun and has a 10.1 year magnetic cycle almost identical to the sunspot cycle of 11, 6 years of the Sun.
"The HD 26965 could be an ideal host star for an advanced civilization," said Matthew Muterspaugh of TSU.
"Star Trek fans may know the star HD 26965 by its alternative nickname, 40 Eridani A," said Gregory Henry of TSU.
In a letter published in the July 1991 issue of Sky and Telescope, Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, and scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysical Center confirmed the identification of 40 Eridani A as a Vulcan host star.
The star system 40 Eridani is composed of three stars. Vulcan is orbiting the primary star and the two companion stars "were shining brightly in the Vulcan sky," they write in their 1991 letter.
"Vulcan is the home planet of the science officer, Mr. Spock, in the original sci-fi series" Star Trek, "said Henry.
"Spock served on the Enterprise ship, whose mission was to search for new strange worlds, a mission shared by the Dharma Planet Survey," he said.
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