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New rocky planet found in constellation Leo |
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Written by admin
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 Spanish
and UCL (University College London) scientists have discovered a
possible terrestrial-type planet orbiting a star in the constellation
of Leo. The new planet, which lies at a distance of 30 light years
from the Earth, has a mass five times that of our planet but is the
smallest found to date. One full day on the new planet would be
equivalent to three weeks on Earth. The team of astronomers from the
Spanish Research Council (CSIC) working with Dr Jean-Philippe Beaulieu,
a visiting astrophysicist at UCL, made the discovery from model
predictions of a new exoplanet (meaning planet outside our solar
system) orbiting a star in the constellation of Leo. Simulations show
that the exoplanet, dubbed GJ 436c, orbits its host star (GJ 436) in
only 5.2 Earth days, and is thought to complete a revolution in 4.2
Earth days, compared to the Earth’s revolution of 24 hours and full
orbit of 365 days. On Earth, a full day (sunset to sunset) coincides
quite closely with the rotation period. On the new planet these two
periods do not coincide, since the orbital translation period and the
rotation period are very similar. For this reason, a full day on the
new planet would take four planetary years, or roughly 22 Earth days.
The study, published this week in Astrophysical Journal, predicted the
presence of a small exoplanet perturbing an inner planet (already
known), producing changes on its orbit. A re-analysis of archival
radial velocities also permitted the identification of a signal that
perfectly matches the simulations and corresponds to a planet in
resonance with the inner one, meaning that for every two orbits of the
known planet the new planet completes one.
Ignasi Ribas, lead
author of the study from CSIC, says: “After final confirmation, the new
exoplanet will be the smallest found to date. It is the first one to be
identified from the perturbations exerted on another planet of the
system. Because of this, the study opens a new path that should lead to
the discovery of even smaller planets in the near future, with the goal
of eventually finding worlds more and more similar to the Earth.
Source: PhysOrg.com
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