A New, Potentially Habitable, Earth-Sized Exoplanet Has Been Discovered

It is called Wolf 1069 b.

A team of 50 astronomers from around the world has just discovered a new exoplanet (a planet that revolves around a star other than the Sun), "only" 31 light years from Earth.

Astronomers have already discovered more than 5,200, but less than 200 are rocky, like Wolf 1069 b.

This planet revolves around a red dwarf star, and in the habitable zone of its star.

Which means liquid water could be on its surface.

The discovery is also particularly interesting because Wolf 1069 has a mass and size equivalent to that of Earth.

"When we analyzed the data from the star Wolf 1069, we discovered a clear, low-amplitude signal from what appears to be a planet with a mass equivalent to that of Earth," said team leader Diana Kossakowski. and astronomer at the Max Planck Institute, Germany.

Eternal days and nights

"It orbits the star in 15.6 days at a distance equivalent to 1/15th of the separation between the Earth and the sun", adds Diana Kossakowski.

For comparison, Mercury, which is the closest planet to our sun, has an orbital period of 88 days.

The temperature there reaches 430°C.

But Wolf 1069 b orbits a star much smaller than our sun, and receives about 65% of the solar radiation on Earth.

The low-intensity UV radiation increases the chances that this exoplanet was able to retain much of its atmosphere, making it potentially habitable.

According to scientists, the surface temperature is between -95°C and 12.8°C, with an average of -40°C.

Temperatures that can show liquid water.

Another peculiarity of Wolf 1069 b: one of the faces is always in the light, while the other is always in the dark.

At the beginning of January, astronomers announced the discovery of TOI 700 e, probably rocky, which was none other than the little sister of TOI 700 d, another exoplanet the size of the Earth.

Both orbit respectively in 28 and 37 Earth days around their star, a hundred light years from ours.