Scientists discover ‘rare’ Super-Earth planet in centre of galaxy
According to the researchers, the planet’s host star is about 10% the mass of our Sun. The Super Earth planet’s mass would be somewhere between that of Earth and Neptune, and would orbit at a location between Venus and Earth from the parent star. The planet’s ‘year’ would be of approximately 617 days.
The quest for another planet just like our very own Earth has long fascinated scientists and they are forever searching for one.
And recently astronomers got success when they found a rare new Super-Earth planet towards the centre of the galaxy.
The planet is one of ‘only a handful of extra-solar planets that have been discovered with both size and orbit comparable to that of Earth, according to the team of astronomers from New Zealand’s University of Canterbury (UC) who found it.
According to American space agency Nasa, Super Earths are quite common in our galaxy and these planets can be up to 10 times more massive than Earth. .
The UC team’s research was published in The Astronomical Journal.
‘Incredibly rare’ is how Dr Anotonio Herrera Martin, the lead researcher of the team of international astronomers, described the planet-finding discovery.
“To have an idea of the rarity of the detection, the time it took to observe the magnification due to the host star was approximately five days, while the planet was detected only during a small five-hour distortion. After confirming this was indeed caused by another ‘body’ different from the star, and not an instrumental error, we proceeded to obtain the characteristics of the star-planet system,” the UC website quoted Dr Herrera Martin as saying.
According to the researchers, the planet’s host star is about 10% the mass of our Sun. The Super Earth planet’s mass would be somewhere between that of Earth and Neptune, and would orbit at a location between Venus and Earth from the parent star. The planet’s ‘year’ would be of approximately 617 days.
All of the planets in our solar system orbit around the Sun. Those planets that orbit around other stars are called extra solar planets or exoplanets, according to Nasa. They are very hard to see directly with telescopes as they are hidden by the bright glare of the stars they orbit.
So, astronomers use other ways to detect and study these distant planets. They search for exoplanets by looking at the effects these planets have on the stars they orbit.
