‘Habitable’ planet circling sun discovered by scientists in huge breakthrough – Daily Express US

A new habitable planet that orbits a sun-like star been discovered by scientists.The exoplanet, a planet outside our solar system, was originally discovered two years ago by Oxford University scientist Dr. Michael Cretignier.However, a team of international researchers at the institution have published new findings expanding on his planetary discovery in Astronomy & Astrophysics.The researchers found that the exoplanet, named HD 20794 d, orbits a “habitable zone” of a nearby star akin to our sun, which the exoplanet orbits elliptically.This means that the exoplanet is close enough to its star to maintain liquid water on its surface, which is essential for sustaining life.If you can’t see the video, click here.However, scientists say more research is required to determine if the planet can host life.The planet, which has a whopping six times greater mass than Earth, is about 20 light years away from our solar system, the researchers found.Dr. Cretignier discovered the astral body while analyzing archived data from High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) at the La Silla Observatory in Chile.HARPS studies the light absorbed and emitted by objects.Dr. Cretignier was able to detect the planet by noticing periodic shifts in the spectrum of light emitted by the host star.Researchers believed this could have occurred because of the gravitational pull of a nearby planet.DON’T MISS…NASA discovers ‘nightmare world’ where it rains glass for ‘death by 1,000 cuts”Time machine’ discovery in Antarctica may unlock mysteries of climate changeAlien life a step closer to being proven after 85 planets discoveredTo test the theory, the international team recorded two decades’ worth of data to analyze.He said, “We worked on data analysis for years, gradually analyizing and eliminating all possible sources of contamination.””For me, it was naturally a huge joy when we could confirm the planet’s existence,” he continued. “It was also a relief since the original signal was at the edge of the spectrograph’s detection limit, so it was hard to be completely convinced at that time if the signal was real or not.”Excitingly, its proximity with us (only 20 light-years) means there is hope for future space missions to obtain an image of it.”SEARCHCONNECT WITH USTHE-EXPRESS.COMWould you like to receive news notifications from The Express?

Source: https://www.the-express.com/news/space-news/161869/habitable-planet-circling-sun-discovered