Finding 'Super Earth' is just 6 light years away from us

Scientists discovered that a spin around the red dwarf Barnard is only 6 light-years away from the solar system.

The team led by Ignasi Ribas at the Spanish Institute of Science found that Barnard's star b planet has 3.2 times the mass of Earth and completed an orbit after 233 days. Research results on the second closest extrasolar planetary solar system published in the journal Nature on November 14, according to IFL Science.

Barnard's star b is very close to Earth.(Photo: Astronomynow).

Barnard's star b attracted much attention because the planet is very close. Barnard himself is the single star closest to the Sun. In terms of distance, only Alpha Centauri consists of three closer stars, including Proxima Centauri, red dwarfs only 4.2 light-years away.

Ribas's team found Barnard's star b by calculating the radial velocity method with an accuracy of 99.2%. They used more than 700 observations about Barnard star from data collected over 20 years.

Barnard or GJ 699 stars have very low mass, only 1/7 of the Sun and emit energy equal to 2% of the Sun. The opportunity to find liquid water on planet Barnard's star b is very fragile because it is 5 times farther away from the habitable zone around the host star. If this is a rocky planet, it is more likely to freeze with an average temperature of about -170 ° C, according to Ribas.

According to researchers, the planet does not pass in front of the host star from the point we observe. They plan to consider the planet more closely with and in the future.