Habitable Super Earth Found Relatively Close By
[ Watch the Video: New Habitable Zone Super-Earth Found in ExoSolar System ]
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
A new, habitable super-Earth has been discovered by astronomers orbiting a dwarf star just 42 light years away.
The new super-Earth is in the habitable zone, where liquid water and a stable atmosphere could be found on the planet.
The latest find is one of three new super-Earths found around the star that has three other low-mass planets orbiting it.
The dwarf star, HD 40307, is smaller and less luminous than the Sun. Other super-Earths found around it are considered “hot” super-Earths because they orbit too close to the star to support life.
Astronomers working on the observations used newly developed software that is able to process the signals more thoroughly and can help reveal the presence of the three additional planets.
“We pioneered new data analysis techniques including the use of the wavelength as a filter to reduce the influence of activity on the signal from this star,” said Mikko Tuomi from the University of Hertfordshire. “This significantly increased our sensitivity and enabled us to reveal three new super-Earth planets around the star known as HD 40307, making it into a six-planet system.”
The team analyzed spectra taken with the HARPS spectrograph through the European Southern Observatory (ESO) public archive to make their finding.
“With Guillem Anglada-Escudé’s new velocity reduction package, we are able to extract more information from the HARPS spectra, and thus make a more precise measurement,” said Carnegie co-author Paul Butler. “This coupled with the innovative Bayesian orbital searching algorithm, primarily written by Mikko Tuomi, allows us to search deeper into the data and to find smaller Earth-sized planets around the nearest stars.”
He said this increases astronomers chances of finding more in that habitable zone where it is not too cold, and not too hot for liquid water.
“The longer orbit of the new planet means that its climate and atmosphere may be just right to support life,” said Hugh Jones of the University of Hertfordshire. “Just as Goldilocks liked her porridge to be neither too hot nor too cold but just right, this planet or indeed any moons that is has lie in an orbit comparable to Earth, increasing the probability of it being habitable.”
The latest planet has a mass that is at least seven times the mass of the Earth, and it is likely to be rotating on its axis while in orbit. This could create a day and night cycle, and an Earth-like environment.
“The star HD 40307 is a perfectly quiet old dwarf star, so there is no reason why such a planet could not sustain an Earth-like climate,” Guillem Anglada-Escudé of the University of Göttingen, said in a press release.
The researchers will be publishing their findings in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
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2012-11-08 15:32:46
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