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Astronomers have discovered a great planet surrounding a sun close to Earth, Barnard's star. Aside from the Alpha Centauri system which consists of three stars and is about 4.3 light years away from us, Barnard's star is the next closest star within 6 light years of the screen.
The new potential planet is believed to be cold and icy and about 3.2 times larger in size than the Earth. It's called Barnard's Star b and is currently a "candidate" planet, which means additional research will be needed to confirm its location and status. The planet is thought to be about 0.4 astronomical units or 37 million miles from the Bernard star, less than half the distance between the Earth and the Sun. The planet gravitates around the star and rotates every 233 days.
Evidence of the planet's existence comes from gravitational forces that cause offsets of light from the near star heading towards our Earth. It was difficult to detect because the planet is relatively small and distant, so it required an analysis of more than 20 years of data to find. Another factor that complicates things is the high speed at which the Barnard star moves, which travels at over 300,000 km / h compared to the sun. He is getting closer to us and he is expected to overtake Alpha Centauri to become the closest star to the Sun in the next 10,000 years.
It has long been thought that planets could gravitate around the Barnard star, which is a red dwarf star about one – sixth the size of our Sun. At 10 billion years, the star is twice as old as our Sun and only 3% of our Sun's light. That's why Barnard's star is an icy planet. The estimated temperature on the surface of the planet is -275 ° F, and astronomers predict that the surface will have a dim orange light during the day from the neighboring red dwarf.
But do not expect to move on this new planet at the moment, because Barnard's Star b is too far from its starry star so liquid water can be present on its surface. The results are published in Nature.
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