Earth-sized Planet Orbiting the Most Common Star in the Galaxy Found Hanging out in Our Cosmic Back Yard

The Debrief ^ | May 22, 2024 | Christopher Plain

[Red Badger]

Scientists using the SPECULOOS (Search for Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars) telescope network have reported the discovery of an Earth-sized planet orbiting the most common star type in the galaxy a mere 55 light years away. Given that the farthest star ever spotted by human scientists lies over 9 billion light-years from Earth, this newly discovered rocky world is one of the closest such space bodies ever spotted.

Dubbed SPECULOOS-3 b, the planet orbits an ultracool red dwarf star, the most common star in the Milky Way galaxy. This type of star can live 100 times longer than our Sun, making it a prime target in the search for life in the galaxy since life would theoretically have a longer time to take hold.

“While ultra-cool dwarf stars are cooler and smaller than our sun, their lifespan is over a hundred times longer – around 100 billion years – and they are expected to be the last stars still shining in the Universe,” said Amaury Triaud, a Professor of Exoplanetology at the University of Birmingham.

Although the new planet is likely too close to its host star to host life, orbiting once every 17 hours, this success shows that the SPECULOOS network is capable of spotting Earth-sized planets around cool dwarf stars. For scientists hoping to find life on planets outside of our solar system, this is a critical ability since cool dwarf stars make up around 70% of the galaxy’s stars.

According to Michaël Gillon, an astronomer at the University of Liège and lead author on the paper outlining the discovery, finding a planet of this size so close to Earth around this type of star is exactly what the network of telescopes placed in the northern and southern hemispheres was built to do.

“We designed SPECULOOS specifically to observe nearby ultracool dwarf stars in search of rocky planets that lend themselves well to detailed studies,” he explained.

“The small size of ultra-cool dwarfs makes it easier to detect small planets,” added Dr. Georgina Dransfield, a former PhD student at the University of Birmingham and a current postdoctoral researcher in Birmingham.

Notably, this is not the seven-year-old network’s first find of an Earth-sized planet. That happened back in 2017 when an early prototype of the SPECULOOS system spotted a series of rocky exoplanets orbiting a cool red dwarf a mere 40 light years away.

“In 2017, our SPECULOOS prototype using the TRAPPIST telescope discovered the famous TRAPPIST-1 system made up of seven Earth-sized planets, several of them potentially habitable,” said Gillon, who also noted that “this was an excellent start!” The SPECULOOS network was also responsible for the discovery of a pair of potentially habitable “Super-Earths” roughly 100 light years from Earth back in 2022.

Surprisingly, the discovery was not made by algorithms searching through mountains of data like most exoplanetary candidates. Instead, Dransfield was manually reviewing some of the network’s readings from the previous day when she spotted the anomaly and quickly alerted the rest of the team.

Alongside the excitement of the discovery of another Earth-sized planet so close to home, the astronomers say their work shows that the fully mature version of telescopes that make up the SPECULOOS network is now proven to work on the largest scale.

“The discovery of SPECULOOS-3 shows our worldwide network functions well and is ready to detect yet more rocky worlds orbiting very low mass stars,” said Triaud.

Moving forward, the researchers behind the discovery believe that the proximity of SPECULOOS 3b makes it an ideal candidate for follow-up observations by the James Webb Space Telescope. If that happens, that observatory’s instruments could gather enough information to characterize the planet’s makeup and atmosphere in much more detail than SPECULOOS.

“SPECULOOS-3b is special in that its stellar and planetary properties make it an optimal target for JWST,” Dransfield explained, “which is capable to get information about the composition of the rocks that make its surface.”

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Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at christopher@thedebrief.org.

[Red Badger]

Knock-Knock, anybody home?........................

[Mr. K]

Cool

[Seruzawa]

Furthest individual star ever spotted is 28 billion lt-yrs away. Not 9.

[Wuli]

A planet being of a size like earth means very little when it comes to “life”.

It’s star is a Red Dwarf.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_dwarf

“Red dwarfs are very-low-mass stars.[15] As a result, they have relatively low pressures, a low fusion rate, and hence, a low temperature. The energy generated is the product of nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium by way of the proton–proton (PP) chain mechanism. Hence, these stars emit relatively little light, sometimes as little as 1⁄10,000 that of the Sun, although this would still imply a power output on the order of 1022 watts (10 trillion gigawatts or 10 ZW). Even the largest red dwarfs (for example HD 179930, HIP 12961 and Lacaille 8760) have only about 10% of the Sun’s luminosity.[16] In general, red dwarfs less than 0.35 M☉ transport energy from the core to the surface by convection. Convection occurs because of opacity of the interior, which has a high density compared to the temperature. As a result, energy transfer by radiation is decreased, and instead convection is the main form of energy transport to the surface of the star. Above this mass, a red dwarf will have a region around its core where convection does not occur.[17]”

That is just the bare beginning of how different, compared to the sun-earth relationship, is the relationship between the “exo-planet” and its star, and the conditions that imparts as to “life” there or not.

But “science” venues love to produce click bait to help support their ad revenue.

[Red Badger]

The furthest individual star ever spotted is MACS J1149+2223 Lensed Star 1, also known as Icarus. It is located approximately 9 billion light-years away, making it the most distant individual star ever detected.

This star is remarkable because it is only visible due to a quirk of nature, where its light is magnified by the gravity of a massive galaxy cluster, located about 5 billion light-years from Earth. Without this gravitational lensing effect, the star would be too faint to be detected.

Key Facts:

Name: MACS J1149+2223 Lensed Star 1 (Icarus)
Distance: Approximately 9 billion light-years away
Type: Individual star
Magnification: Magnified by the gravity of a massive galaxy cluster.

[Seruzawa]

According to NASA and various scientific sources, the furthest individual star from Earth is Earendel, also known as GN-z11. It is a star that existed within the first billion years after the universe’s birth in the Big Bang. Its light took 13.4 billion years to reach Earth, making it the farthest individual star ever seen to date.

Distance: 13.4 billion light-years from Earth

Age: 13.4 billion years old (when the universe was only 7% of its current age)

Lol. There was another link that said 28 billion. I guess it depends on who you ask

[teeman8r]

i thought our sun was the most common star in the galaxy?

[Red Badger]

Our Sun is common but not as common as Red Dwarf stars....................

[Carl Vehse]

"Earth-sized Planet Orbiting the Most Common Star in the Galaxy"

Yet again the "possible life on exoplanets" spin continues. The most common star turns out to be an ultracool red dwarf star, from which the article pontificates, "This type of star can live 100 times longer than our Sun, making it a prime target in the search for life in the galaxy."

But later the article admits the "Earth-sized planet" orbits so close to the star, a complete revolution occurs every 17 hours. The planet is very likely tidally locked so that one side is always facing the star. This is not conducive for any life on such a planet, much less intelligent life.

[Red Badger]

28 billion is impossible in a 13 billion year old universe.............

[teeman8r]

common as in more people are familiar with our sun than any other star.

[Red Badger]

Also, Red Dwarf stars are prone to powerful eruptions of heated plasma called flares, which can blast orbiting planets with X-rays, ultraviolet light, and a stellar wind (gush of charged particles). These flares are equivalent to more than 100 million atomic bombs.

Which makes ‘life’ kinda difficult...............

[lgjhn23]

“..Which makes ‘life’ kinda difficult...............”

Sounds like the perfect place to send the woke, libs, communists etc. that infest this planet with their cancer.... /s

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Red Badger.

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[BigFreakinToad]

If we could only go and see it.

[Red Badger]

Even if we had a ship that could accelerate to the speed of light, it would be too slow to get there in a single lifetime..............

[Seruzawa]

So are the large structures supposedly at the limit of detection. They spend more time explaining “impossible” things than anyone.

[Seruzawa]

Time dilation would make it seem much shorter to the occupants.

[BigFreakinToad]

yep, need to be a generational ship or someone cracks human hibernation.