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NASA has confirmed the discovery of closest super earth. It is the nearest rocky planet outside our solar system and is larger than Earth. It is considered a potential gold mine of science data. The exoplanet, dubbed HD 219134b is 21 light-years away and orbits very close to its star to sustain life.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, the Spitzer telescope mission project scientist Michael Werner said, “Transiting exoplanets are worth their weight in gold because they can be extensively characterized.”
Rocky planets like this are bigger than Earth in proportions and belong to growing class of planets called super-Earths.
The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, study co-author Lars A. Buchhave said, “Most of the known planets are hundreds of light-years away. This one is practically a next-door neighbor.”
Super Earth - HD 219134b
It is determined that HD 219134b has a mass 4.5 times more than Earth, and orbits around its star within three days. Scientists will be now moving quickly to observe it from ground and space to get chemical information as the planet passes before it. Starlight will be observed for imprint patterns formed if the planet has an atmosphere and chemicals.
Initially the planet was discovered in the Canary Islands leveraging HARPS-North instrument on the Italian 3.6-metre Galileo National Telescope. It is the subject of a study accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
-Sumana
