(ORDO NEWS) — An international team of astronomers has announced the discovery of a new superterrestrial exoplanet orbiting a nearby M-dwarf star called Ross 508. The newly discovered alien world, designated Ross 508 b, is at least four times as massive as our planet.
“Super-Earths” are planets that are more massive than Earth, but do not exceed the mass of Neptune.
Now, astronomers led by Hiroki Harakawa of the Subaru Telescope have discovered a new super-Earth class planet.
Using the Infrared Doppler Instrument (IRD) on the 8.2-meter Subaru Telescope, they measured the radial velocity (RV) of Ross 508, an M4.5 spectral-type M dwarf located about 36.5 light-years away.
The recently discovered exoplanet Ross 508 b has a minimum mass of four Earth masses and orbits its host every 10.75 days.
According to astronomers, this indicates an orbit-averaged insolation of about 1.4 times Earth’s, which places this planet near the inner edge of Ross 508’s habitable zone
. the origin of the planet. The researchers speculate that Ross 508 b may have formed behind the snow line and undergo a type I inward migration.
They noted that even if the eccentricity of the migrating alien world is initially high, it could be offset by the force exerted on the planet by density waves.
The parent star Ross 508 has a radius of about 0.21 solar radii and a mass of about 0.18 solar masses, giving a density of 26.5 g/cm3. The effective temperature of the star is 2797.85°C, and its metallicity is estimated at -2.0.
Summing up, the authors hope that future studies using IRD and other high-precision near-infrared spectrographs will make it possible to detect planets around more stars like Ross 508.
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