By James Rogers
An international team of
astronomers has found 60 new planets orbiting stars close to Earth’s solar
system, including a rocky “super Earth.”
The experts also found evidence
of an additional 54 planets, bringing the potential discovery of new worlds to
114.
One planet in particular, Gliese
411b, has been generating plenty of attention. Described as a “hot super Earth
with a rocky surface,” Gliese 411b is located in the fourth-nearest star system
to the Sun, making it the third-nearest planetary system to the Sun, according
to the U.K.’s University of Hertfordshire, which participated in the research.
Gliese 411b (also known as GJ 411b or Lalande 21185) orbits the star Gliese 411
(or GJ 411).
Despite the “super Earth” label, Dr. Mikko
Tuomi from University of Hertfordshire’s Centre for Astrophysics told Fox News
that Gliese 411b is too hot for life to exist on its surface.
Gliese 411 and Gliese 411b are
located 8 light years from earth. A light year, which measures distance in
space, equals 6 trillion miles.
By way of comparison, the
recently-discovered Earth-like planet Proxima b, which orbits the red dwarf
Proxima Centauri, is about 4 light years from Earth. A red dwarf is a
relatively cool small star.
Tuomi, who was also involved in
the discovery of Proxima b, told Fox News that the latest batch of planets
marks a significant discovery. “Over the recent years it has been established
as a scientific fact that there are more planets in the Universe than there are
stars. This means that virtually every star has a planet, or several of them,
orbiting it,” he explained, via email. “Our discovery of dozens of new nearby
planets highlights this fact. But it also does more. We are now moving on from
simply discovering these worlds.”
“In essence, we are now building
an observational roadmap for future giant telescopes that can be used to image
some or even most of these newly found worlds,” Tuomi added. “This is like
mapping an archipelago so that we are familiar with it in the future when
taking a closer look at what its islands actually look like.”
The 60 new planets are found
orbiting stars that are mostly some 20 to 300 light years away, according to
Tuomi.
The discoveries are based on
observations taken over 20 years by U.S. astronomers using the Keck-I telescope
in Hawaii as part of the Lick-Carnegie Exoplanet Survey. During the course of
the research, scientists obtained almost 61,000 observations of 1,600 stars,
which are now available to the public.
Sponsored by NASA and the
National Science Foundation, the Lick-Carnegie Exoplanet Survey harnesses the
talents of planet hunters from a number of organizations, including the
University of California (UC) Santa Cruz and the Carnegie Institution for
Science in Washington, D.C.
The Carnegie Institution of
Science also led a team that included MIT to release the data on the almost
61,000 observations of 1,600 stars.