Stunning find revealed - Recent discovery of an exoplanet stirs controversy among scientists.
A recently discovered planet has been named the confidante of Speculoos-3b, making it only the second planet found near a dwarf star. To observe this celestial body, you can train your telescope on the constellation Pegasus, where it was spotted.
The planet has a diameter close to 12,500 kilometers, making it slightly smaller than Earth. Owing to its perpetual face-up position towards its star, it experiences unending cycles of day and night, much like our moon. However, life on this planet is far from being feasible due to its proximity to its star (16 times closer than Earth to the sun) and its high levels of radiation, reaching around 280 degrees plus.
The dwarf star Speculoos-3 has a surface temperature of about 2600 degrees Celsius, much cooler compared to the sun at 5500 degrees Celsius. It also weighs significantly less, with only ten percent of the sun's mass, and has a meager 0.08% of its brightness.
The discovery of Speculoos-3b was not orchestrated by any algorithms; rather, as a keen observer, Dr. Georgina Dransfield, an ex-PhD student from the University of Birmingham, noticed the planetary signal, prompting the entire project team. She elaborates: "The minuscule size of ultracool dwarfs creates a favorable environment for spotting small planets. Speculoos-3b is notable due to its combination of stellar and planetary characteristics that make it a preferred candidate for the James Webb Space Telescope." The telescope will be employed to scrutinize the planet's surface minerals and examine the prospects for an atmosphere.
Academics from the Universities of Birmingham, Cambridge, Bern, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are part of the international Speculoos initiative at the University of Liège in Belgium. This project's mission is to identify rocky exoplanets circling cool dwarf stars, which make up approximately 70% of the stars in the Milky Way.
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Source: symclub.org
