Astronomers has discovered a new Venus like planet in the solar system which is relatively close to earth, the planet found is rocky and named as GJ 1132b.
A new Venus-Like planet has been discovered by astronomers in a solar system which is relatively close to earth. They found a rocky planet called GJ 1132b which is slightly larger than Earth and like Venus its surface is too hot to support liquid water.
Astronomer David Charbonneau of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) in US said, “We are searching for an earth like planet but along with we have found twin Venus instead of twin Earth. We doubtful it will have a Venus like atmosphere too and if it does we can’t wait to get a hint”.
At 39 light years away, GJ 1132b is the nearest rocky exoplanet yet discovered. Its relative closeness to Earth and the fact that it orbits its star once every 1.6 days means that astronomers now have an important test-bed to study the atmospheres of other far-away planets with telescopes that could detect the first chemical signatures of life beyond the Solar System – such as atmospheric methane.
As a result, GJ 1132b is scorched to a temperature of about 232 degrees Celsius. Such temperatures would boil off any water the planet may have once held, but still allows for the presence of an atmosphere. It is also significantly cooler than any other exoplanet confirmed to be rocky, researchers said.
GJ 1132b was discovered by the MEarth-South array, which is dedicated to the hunt for terrestrial worlds orbiting red dwarf stars. After MEarth-South detected a transit in real time, additional observations were gathered by the array and the Magellan Clay telescope in Chile.
The team also measured the host star’s gravitational wobble using the HARPS spectrograph to determine the planet’s mass. They found that GJ 1132b is 16 per cent larger than Earth, with a diameter of about 14805 km. It has a mass 60 per cent greater than Earth. The resulting density indicates that the planet has a rocky composition similar to Earth.
The planet also has an Earth-like force of gravity. A person standing on the surface of GJ 1132b would weigh only about 20 per cent more than they do on Earth. Since the red dwarf star is small, the relative size of the planet to the star is larger than it would be for a Sun-like star.