Astronomers discover new Earth-sized world orbiting an ultra-cool star
This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:
An international team of astronomers has detected a new, Earth-sized planet just 55 light years away, orbiting an ultra-cool red dwarf star.
The planet is only the second of its kind to be discovered around this type of star. Called SPECULOOS-3 b, it takes around 17 hours to complete an orbit of the star, which is more than twice as cold as our sun, as well as ten times less massive and a hundred times less luminous.
Days and nights on SPECULOOS-3 b seem to be endless: The planet is likely to be tidally locked, so the same side—the "dayside"—always faces the star in a relationship similar to our moon and Earth.
The discovery, published in Nature Astronomy, was made by the SPECULOOS project, which is led by the University of Liège, in Belgium, in collaboration with the Universities of Birmingham, Cambridge, Bern, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. SPECULOOS (Search for Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars) was established to search for exoplanets orbiting ultra-cool dwarf stars using a network of robotic telescopes based around the world.
