'Super-Earth' discovered orbiting Sun's nearest star

[Peter1469]

'Super-Earth' discovered orbiting Sun's nearest star

Just 6 light years away.

Astronomers studied Barnard's Star, a red dwarf just six light years away -- practically in our back garden, galactically speaking -- and noticed the presence of a "frozen, dimly lit world" at least 3.2 times heavier than Earth.

The planet, known for now as Barnard's Star b, is the second nearest to Earth outside the solar system and orbits its host star once every 233 days.


"It's important because it's really our nextdoor neighbour and we like to meet our neighbours in general," Ignasi Ribas, from the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia and Spain's Institute of Space Sciences, told AFP.


Despite being relatively close to its parent star, the planet receives less than two percent of the energy Earth gets from the Sun, and the team estimates it has a surface temperature of -170 degrees Celsius (-274 Farenheit) -- far too cold to support life as we know it.


"It's definitely not in the habitable zone, no liquid water. If it has any water or gas this is probably in solid form so that's why we call it frozen," said Ribas.

[southwest88]

Yah, the nearest star to our sun is Proxima Centauri, @ ~ 4.2LY. But it's part of a multi-star system. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centauri) It's always good to roll out the Welcome Wagon for the neighbors. Not that we'll be going there anytime very soon. But it's nice to know there are other fixed points we could visit, once our technology is up to it.

I remember Proxima as the closest star, & the wording on the article @ the URL seemed very fussy.