Although promising, it is not yet possible, with current technologies, to obtain more details on the planet’s atmosphere.
A team of 50 researchers has discovered a new exoplanet (planet located outside the Solar system) rocky, with mass and dimensions similar to those of the Earth, only 31 light-years from our home: it is called Wolf 1069 b.
Although astronomers have already cataloged around 5,200 exoplanets, fewer than 200 of them are rocky, making the discovery all the more exciting. Wolf 1069 b orbits a red dwarf star Wolf 1069, in its habitable zone, which means there may be liquid water on its surface.
“When we analyzed the data from the star Wolf 1069, we discovered a clear low-amplitude signal of what appears to be a planet with an approximate mass of Earth,” Diana Kossakowski, astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany. he told Space.
“It orbits the star in 15.6 days at a distance equivalent to 15º of the separation between the Earth and the Sun“, He says.
Wolf 1069 b receives the equivalent of 65% of the solar radiation that reaches the Earth. This improves its housing prospects, with surface temperatures ranging from -95.15ºC to 12.85ºC, with an average of -40.14ºC.
The exoplanet is ‘stuck’ to its star so that the same side always faces the star, in a motion similar to what the Moon does in its orbit around the Earth. However, even without a defined day-night cycle, researchers expect the dayside to have a chance of having some habitable conditions.
It is not yet possible, with current technologies, to obtain more details about the atmosphere of Wolf 1069 b, nor identified by markers that show whether the planet once harbored life.
But researchers are confident about advances in telescopes. “This will happen in the next decade (or two or three) with more advanced technologies, so stay tuned: perhaps our grandchildren will witness the meeting of life on another planet,” says the scientist.
Source: Terra
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