ESO Science Release | 2018 Nov 14
Red Dots campaign uncovers compelling evidence of exoplanet around closest single star to Sun
The nearest single star to the Sun hosts an exoplanet at least 3.2 times as massive as Earth — a so-called super-Earth. One of the largest observing campaigns to date using data from a world-wide array of telescopes, including ESO’s planet-hunting HARPS instrument, have revealed this frozen, dimly lit world. The newly discovered planet is the second-closest known exoplanet to the Earth. Barnard’s star is the fastest moving star in the night sky.
A planet has been detected orbiting Barnard’s Star, a mere 6 light-years away. This breakthrough — announced in a paper published today in the journal Nature — is a result of the Red Dots and CARMENES projects, whose search for local rocky planets has already uncovered a new world orbiting our nearest neighbour, Proxima Centauri.
The planet, designated Barnard's Star b, now steps in as the second-closest known exoplanet to Earth [1]. The gathered data indicate that the planet could be a super-Earth, having a mass at least 3.2 times that of the Earth, which orbits its host star in roughly 233 days. Barnard’s Star, the planet’s host star, is a red dwarf, a cool, low-mass star, which only dimly illuminates this newly-discovered world. Light from Barnard’s Star provides its planet with only 2% of the energy the Earth receives from the Sun. ...
A Cold Super-Earth in our Neighbourhood
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy | 2018 Nov 14
Cold Super-Earth Found Orbiting Second-Closest Star System
Carnegie Institution for Science | 2018 Nov 14
Planet Discovered Orbiting the Second Closest Stellar System
Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia | 2018 Nov 14
Super-Earth Discovered Orbiting the Sun’s Famous Stellar Neighbor
W. M. Keck Observatory | 2018 Nov 14
A Candidate Super-Earth Planet Orbiting near the Snow-Line of Barnard’s Star ~ I. Ribas et al
- Nature 563(7731):365 (15 Nov 2018) DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0677-y (preprint)
