By: Chloe B. | Courthouse News
With the discovery of a new “Super-Earth,” astronomers are hoping it could help answer one of the biggest questions in science: Are we alone in the universe?
Super-Earths aren’t typically much like our Earth in terms of habitability or composition. Rather, the term refers to exoplanets made of gas, rock or possibly both, that are greater in mass than our planet but smaller than our solar system’s ice giants like Neptune and Uranus.
But according to an international team of researchers, including some from the University of Geneva, in a study published Tuesday in Astronomy & Astrophysics believe the super-Earth, dubbed HD 20794 d, could offer new insights into what makes a planet capable of supporting life.
Since the first exoplanet was found in 1995, more than 5,000 others have been confirmed. But many are too far away or too hard to study in detail.
But HD 20794 d stands out because it’s only 19.7 light-years away, relatively close in cosmic terms, and it orbits its star in and out of the habitable zone — the region where liquid water could exist, a key ingredient for life as we know it.
“HD 20794 is not an ordinary star,” said Xavier Dumusque, senior lecturer at the University of Geneva and a co-author of the study, in a press release. “Its luminosity and proximity makes it an ideal candidate for future telescopes whose mission will be to observe the atmospheres of exoplanets directly.”
HD 20794 d orbits its star at a distance slightly less than Mars’s orbit around the Sun. For a star like the Sun, the habitable zone stretches from about 0.7 to 1.5 astronomical units, with Earth sitting at about 1 astronomical unit.
Unlike Earth, which follows a nearly circular orbit, HD 20794 d follows an elliptical, or oval-shaped, path. This means its distance from the star changes, swinging it in and out of the habitable zone.
Researchers say finding this super-Earth wasn’t easy — it took multiple rounds of analysis. For years, signals from planets like HD 20794 d were buried under background noise, making it difficult to confirm their existence.
“We analysed the data for years, carefully eliminating sources of contamination,” said Michael Cretignier, a post-doctoral researcher at Oxford University and co-author of the study, in a press release.
The research team spent over 20 years gathering and analysing data from advanced instruments like ESPRESSO and HARPS, which are designed to detect small, distant planets.
Now, after the exoplanet finally having been detected, researchers hope further study can be conducted. Due to its proximity to its star, HD 20794 d is a prime candidate for exploration with the ANDES spectrograph for ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope located in South America.
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You’ll Love This One …
No matter how much evidence has been provided to the contrary, the idea that the Earth is flat is one that stubbornly persists among conspiracy theorists.
Chat rooms and Reddit threads thrive with claims and supposed evidence intended to prove that all the scientists and astronomers are wrong, with people pointing to daylight savings, the horizon and the view from plane windows to try and support their views.
Meanwhile, the truth about the shape of the Earth has been floating around for centuries, with Greek philosopher Pythagoras speculating that the Earth was actually spherical even before his death in 495 B.C.
Still, the disagreement continues, so one astronaut decided to take matters into his own hands when he found himself with a rare perspective on the Earth.
The astronaut was up in space, hanging out among the stars as astronauts do, and filming himself while doing it.
Then, with one flip of his camera, he well and truly shut down the Flat Earth theory by revealing a view of our planet, shining bright and undeniably spherical in front of him.
The video was shared on the TikTok page @spacemanedu with the caption: “Someone Said Earth Was Flat…”, after which it received more than six million likes.
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