Four Mysterious Alien Worlds Discovered Just 6 Light-Years from Earth! – The Daily Galaxy –Great Discoveries Channel
Scientists just found four alien worlds lurking near Earth’s cosmic backyard! Are they lifeless rocks or could they hold secrets of extraterrestrial life?Astronomers have detected four small planets orbiting Barnard’s Star, one of the closest stars to Earth, at just six light-years away. This discovery, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, marks a significant step in the search for rocky exoplanets beyond our solar system. These worlds are among the smallest ever found using radial velocity techniques, hinting at a future where detecting Earth-sized planets around nearby stars could become routine.Barnard’s Star, first identified in 1916 by E. E. Barnard, is famous for its rapid motion across the sky. It’s an M-dwarf star, a type of red dwarf known for its long lifespan and frequent planetary companions. While previous attempts to confirm planets around it led to false alarms, recent advances in observational technology have now provided clear evidence of four miniature worlds orbiting this star.Unlike Proxima Centauri, the closest star system to Earth, which hosts at least one known exoplanet in the habitable zone, Barnard’s Star is a single-star system. Rather than directly observing these planets, scientists rely on a technique called radial velocity, which measures the tiny “wobbles” a planet’s gravity induces on its host star.To uncover these planets, astronomers used MAROON-X, a high-precision spectrograph installed on the Gemini Telescope in Hawaii. The instrument is designed to detect minute shifts in starlight caused by orbiting planets. The first three planets were identified using this method, while the fourth was confirmed through additional observations from the ESPRESSO instrument in Chile.“We observed at different times of night on different days. They’re in Chile; we’re in Hawaii. Our teams didn’t coordinate with each other at all,” said Ritvik Basant, a Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago and lead author of the study.These four newly discovered planets are estimated to be 20-30% the mass of Earth—some of the smallest exoplanets ever confirmed using radial velocity methods. Their orbits are incredibly short, completing one full revolution around Barnard’s Star in just a few days.Because they don’t transit in front of their star from our point of view, their exact compositions remain unknown. However, astronomers strongly suspect they are rocky planets, similar in nature to Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.Their proximity to Barnard’s Star likely makes them too hot to host liquid water or life as we know it. Still, their discovery is an important milestone in refining our ability to detect small exoplanets in nearby systems.This finding is a breakthrough for exoplanetary science. The ability to detect such tiny planets suggests that next-generation telescopes could soon find even more Earth-like worlds around similar stars.“We worked on this data really intensely at the end of December, and I was thinking about it all the time,” said Jacob Bean, a professor at the University of Chicago and a co-author of the study. “A lot of what we do can be incremental, and it’s sometimes hard to see the bigger picture.” Comment Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
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