A super-Earth and an exoplanet Ross 508b has been found near the habitable zone of a red dwarf star only 37 light-years from the Earth. This is the first discovery by a new instrument on the Subaru Telescope and offers a chance to investigate the possibility of life on planets around nearby stars.
The scientists expect that the Subaru Telescope will discover more, potentially even better, candidates for habitable planets around red dwarfs. Red dwarfs, stars smaller than the Sun, account for three-quarters of the stars in the Milky Way Galaxy, and are abundant in the neighborhood around the Sun.
The exoplanet is 37 light-years away from the earth, and moves in and out of the habitable zone of the star it revolves around.
A star’s habitable zone, also called Goldilocks’ zone, is the distance at which liquid water can possibly exist on the planet’s surface to sustain life.
Ross 508b takes only 10.8 days to complete one orbit around its star – its year significantly shorter than the earth we live on.
The exoplanet is about four times the mass of the earth, making it a super-earth. Planets outside our solar system are called exoplanets.
Most exoplanets revolve around stars, but there may be a few rogue, unattached ones too.
The first exoplanet, 51 Pegasi b, was discovered in 1995 by Michael Mayor and Didier Queloz.
Super-Earth is the name given to planets between the size of Earth and Neptune. Super-Earths are actually the most common type of planet in our galaxy. Kepler 452b was the first near-earth-size planet discovered within a sun-like star’s habitable zone.
