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A New Rocky Planet Half the Size of Venus Discovered 35 Light Years Away

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Published on: August 6, 2021,

A team of astronomers has found a rocky planet half the mass of Venus using European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) in Chile. There was a nearby star L 98-59, that resemble those in the inner Solar System. It might have an ocean world and an atmosphere which is a possibility for it to be habitable. It orbits a star only 35 light years and has now been found to host rocky planets and they are warm.

 

The findings are crucial step to find life on Earth sized planets outside the Solar System. There were quest and possibility but very less findings. The detection of possibility of life depend on ability to study its atmosphere but the current telescope will not be able to achieve resolution for this small planet.

 

With the contribution of ESO’s VLT the team was able to deduce three of the planets may contain water in the interior’s or atmosphere. The two planets closest to the star in L 98-59 are possibly dry but the third planet could have 30% water making it an ocean world. Moreover the team found “hidden exoplanets” that had not been spotted in this planetary system and they suspect there is fourth and fifth exoplanets that has not been previously spotted in this planetary system. Oliver Demangeon, a researcher at University of Porto in Portugal says, “We have hints of presence of a terrestrial planet in the habitable zone of this system.”

 

The study represents a technical breakthrough as astronomers found lightest exoplanet ever measured using this technique The team used Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectroscopic Observations (ESPRESSO) instrument on ESO’s VLT to study L 98-59. “Without precision provided by ESPRESSO it would not be possible” says Zapatero Osorio.

 

The astronomers first spotted three of L 98-59’s planets in 2019, using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). It was only possible with radial velocity measurements made with ESPRESSO and its predecessor, the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS 3.6 meter telescope Demangeon and his team were able to find extra planets and measure mass and radius of the three. “If you want to know the composition of a planet you need is its mass and radius,” Demangeon explains.

 

This presents a new possibility to find neighbor habitable planet and possibility of life.

 

 

 

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