Scientists discover Earth-sized exoplanet, close enough to study atmosphere

[jimmy olsen]

Unfortunately it looks like it will turn out to be a hellish Venus like world.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-12/scientists-find-exoplanet-close-enough-to-study-atmosphere/6937130

Scientists discover 'closest Earth-sized exoplanet to date', close enough to study atmosphere

By Jonathan Hepburn

Updated about 8 hours ago

An international team of scientists has found a new planet so close to Earth it is possible to study the atmosphere using optical telescopes.

The exoplanet (a planet that circles a star other than our Sun) circles the star GJ 1132 and has been given the identifier GJ 1132b.

The system is only 39 light-years away from us in the Vela constellation, which is visible from the southern hemisphere.

In a report published in the prestigious journal Nature, the researchers said they discovered the new planet after noticing a very faint dimming of GJ 1132 every 1.6 days.

Based on the amount of dimming (0.3 per cent) and the radius of the star, GJ 1132b was calculated to be approximately 16 per cent larger than Earth.

The amount the star wobbled due to GJ 1132b's gravity was used to calculate the planet's mass to be about 62 per cent greater than that of Earth.

Its average density resembles that of Earth, and is well matched by a rock/iron composition, the researchers said.

Too hot for life, but cool enough for an atmosphere

Although GJ 1132 is only a fifth of the radius of our Sun and only a little more than half as hot, GJ 1132b orbits so close that its surface temperature was calculated at an average of about 500 Kelvin (227 Celcius).

"The temperature of the planet is about as hot as your oven will go, so it's like burnt-cookie hot," lead researcher Zachory Berta-Thompson from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology told MIT News.

"It's too hot to be habitable. There's no way there's liquid water on the surface. But it is a lot cooler than the other rocky planets that we know of."

In fact, scientists are excited that GJ 1132b is cool enough to possibly have an atmosphere.

"If we find this pretty hot planet has managed to hang onto its atmosphere over the billions of years it's been around, that bodes well for the long-term goal of studying cooler planets that could have life," Dr Berta-Thompson said.

"We finally have a target to point our telescopes at."

Dr Berta-Thompson said she hopes the James Webb Space Telescope, which will launch in 2018 as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, will be able to identify the colour, chemical makeup and behaviour of the planet's atmosphere.

Star a likely candidate for an Earth-type planet

The researchers note that recent results show that on average, M-dwarf stars such as GJ 1132 have at least one Earth-sized planet each.

M-dwarf stars are smaller than 60 per cent of the size of our Sun and outnumber Sun-like stars by 12:1.

Before this discovery, the closest known Earth-type planet orbited a star 127 light-years away, and most known rocky planets have surface temperatures of over 1,000 degrees.

In July, NASA announced the discovery of a planetary system with three "super-Earths" 21 light years from Earth.

The smallest of these has a mass 2.7 times that of Earth, and the largest is 8.7 times heavier.

[Josquius]

Venus is kind of hellish, but another earth would be far more hellish

But interesting how much exploration of extra solar planets we are managing to do from home. We're turning into one of those species from sci fI who despite never leaving home.have a vast knowledge of the cosmos

[Eddie Teach]

I bet if you leave now, it will have cooled down a bit by the time you get there.

[The Brain]

Tim will not!

[viper37]

Venus is kind of hellish, but another earth would be far more hellish

It would be great, if you think about it.

[Siege]

The Fermi Paradox:
http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html