(ORDO NEWS) — An international team of astronomers using the Echelle spectrograph has discovered a previously unknown alien world.
The new exoplanet orbits the nearest M-class dwarf star and is located relatively close to Earth.
The new world was discovered using an instrument mounted on ESPRESSO, the name of a state-of-the-art ultra-stable high-resolution spectrograph, which is part of the VLT’s Very Large Telescope in Chile.
The accuracy of this instrument allows it to detect Earth-like planets orbiting Sun-like stars.
In this case, a team of astronomers led by Leah F. Sartori of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich used ESPRESSO to search for planets around nearby stars.
In particular, the study affected object L 363-38, an M-class dwarf star located approximately 33.3 light-years from Earth. The observations lasted almost a year and a half.
As a result, a new planet was discovered, designated L 363-38 b. According to scientists, its mass is about 4.67 Earth masses, and its radius is estimated to be between 1.55 and 2.75 Earth radii.
“The exoplanet revolves around its host star every 8.78 days at a distance of about 0.048 astronomical units from it, that is, at the edge of the habitable zone,” the researchers write.
“The equilibrium temperature of L 363-38 b was calculated to be about 56 degrees Celsius.”
The parent star L 363-38, estimated to be eight billion years old, has a radius of about 0.274 solar radii and a mass of about 0.21 solar masses.
The measured effective temperature of this star was 2855 degrees Celsius. Astronomers suggest that other planets, as yet unknown to us, may also revolve around it.
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