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<ul><li>A <keyword id="12659222" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="new-exoplanet" source="Orion">new exoplanet</keyword> ‘GJ 367 b’ has been discovered where a year amounts to only eight years.</li><li>It’s believed to be a rocky planet like Mercury and has just half the mass of Earth.</li><li>GJ 367 b also belongs to the ‘ultra-short period’ (USP) group of exoplanets that orbit their star in less than 24 hours.</li></ul>Scientists have discovered a new <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/exominer-machine-learning-method-helped-discover-301-exoplanets/articleshow/87979847.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">exoplanet</a> where time flies super quick. On <keyword id="12659223" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="planet-gj-367-b" source="Orion">Planet GJ 367 b</keyword>, a year equals to only eight hours as compared to 365 days on Earth. The newly discovered planet is also believed to have a rocky surface like Mercury. <br /><br />Planet GJ 367b was discovered by scientists at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute of Planetary Research. This planet is said to be featherweight as it has just half the mass of Earth. It’s also expected to be one of the lightest among the almost 5,000 exoplanets discovered so far. It has a diameter of just over 9,000 kilometers making it slightly larger than Mars.<br /><br />Since it takes the <keyword id="54132" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="exoplanet" source="Orion">exoplanet</keyword> around eight hours to orbit its parent star, that’s how much a year would amount to on this planet. GJ 367 b also belongs to the ‘ultra-short period’ (USP) group of exoplanets that orbit their star in less than 24 hours. Scientists have discovered similar exoplanets as GJ 367 b but their origins are still unknown.<br /><br />"It seems to have similarities to Mercury. This places it among the sub-Earth sized terrestrial planets and brings research one step forward in the search for a 'second Earth'," said astronomer Kristin Lam in a statement.<br /><br />Upon researching the planet, GJ 367b was found to be a low-mass rocky planet which is more dense than earth and with properties similar to those of Mercury. The planet’s proximity also reveals that it’s exposed to high levels of radiation, 500 times more than what the Earth experiences. This also means that the surface temperature on GJ 367b could reach up to 1500 degrees Celsius which not only makes living here impossible for humans but rocks and metals would also easily be melted. <br /><br />In terms of the distance from Earth, planet GJ 367b is 31 light years which according to the scientists makes it ideal for further investigation. This discovery also expands the capabilities of finding out more about exoplanets, even those that could be the smallest and the least massive exoplanets. <br /><br /><strong>SEE ALSO:</strong><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/exominer-machine-learning-method-helped-discover-301-exoplanets/articleshow/87979847.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">ExoMiner, a new machine learning method helped discover 301 exoplanets</a><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/nasas-planetary-defense-system-the-mission-that-plans-to-defend-earth-from-asteroids-comets/slidelist/87903499.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">NASA’s planetary defence system: The mission that plans to defend earth from asteroids, comets</a><br />

Scientists discover Mercury-like exoplanet where a year is only eight hours long

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>©Alan Friedman/ avertedimagination.com</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>How do you go about hunting for life on <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/exoplanets">another planet</a> elsewhere in our galaxy? A useful starting point is to imagine looking from afar for signs of life on Earth.</p><p>In a telescope like those we have on Earth, those aliens would likely just see the Earth and sun merged together into a single pale yellow dot.</p><p>If they were able to separate the Earth from the sun, they'd still only see a pale blue dot.</p><p>There would be no way for them to image our planet's surface and see life roving upon it.</p><p>However, those aliens could use <a href="http://loke.as.arizona.edu/~ckulesa/camp/spectroscopy_intro.html">spectroscopy</a>, taking Earth's light and breaking it into its component colours, to figure out what gases make up our atmosphere. Among these gases, they might hope to find a "biomarker", something unusual and unexpected that could only be explained by the presence of life.</p><p>On Earth, the most obvious clue to the presence of life is the abundance of free oxygen in our atmosphere. Why oxygen? Because it is highly reactive and readily combines with other molecules on Earth's surface and in our oceans. Without the constant resupply coming from life, the free oxygen in the atmosphere would largely disappear.</p><h2>Biomarkers</h2><p>But the story isn't quite that simple. Life has existed on Earth for <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-australias-new-fossils-are-not-the-oldest-but-their-value-is-set-in-stone-2994">at least 3.5 billion years</a>. For much of that time, however, oxygen levels were far lower than those seen today.</p><p>And oxygen alone is not enough to indicate life; there are many abiological processes that can contribute oxygen to a planet's atmosphere.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Wikimedia</span></p><p class="caption">The concentration of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere over the last billion years. As a reference, the dashed red line shows the present concentration of 21%.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>For example, ultraviolet light could produce abundant oxygen in the atmosphere of a world covered with water, even if it was devoid of life.</p><p>The upshot of this is that a single gas does not a biomarker make. Instead, we must instead look for evidence of a chemical imbalance in a planet's atmosphere, something that can not be explained by anything other than the presence of life.</p><p>Here on Earth, we have one: our atmosphere is not just rich in oxygen, but also contains significant traces of methane. While abundant oxygen or methane could easily be explained on a planet without life, we also know that methane and oxygen react with each other strongly and rapidly.</p><p>When you put them together, that reaction will cleanse the atmosphere of whichever is least common. So to maintain the amount of methane in our oxygen-rich atmosphere, you need a huge source of methane, replenishing it against oxygen's depleting influence. The most likely explanation is life.</p><h2>Observing exoplanetary atmospheres</h2><p>If we find an exoplanet sufficiently similar to our own, there are several ways in which we could study its atmosphere to search for biomarkers.</p><p>When a planet passes directly between us and its host star, a small fraction of the star's light will pass through the planet's atmosphere on its way to Earth. If we could zoom in far enough, we would actually see the planet's atmosphere as a translucent ring surrounding the dark spot that marks the body of the planet.</p><p>How much starlight passes through that ring gives us an indication of the atmosphere's density and composition. What we get is a "<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-seeing-the-universe-through-spectroscopic-eyes-37759">transmission spectrum</a>", which is an absorption spectrum of the planetary atmosphere, illuminated by the background light of the star.</p><p>Our technology has only now become capable of collecting and analysing these spectra for the first time. As a result, our interpretation remains strongly limited by our telescopic capabilities and our burgeoning understanding of planetary atmospheres.</p><p>Despite the current challenges, the technique continues to develop with great success. In the past few years, astronomers have discovered a wide variety of different chemical species in the atmospheres of some of the biggest and baddest of the known transiting exoplanets.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>NASA/JPL-Caltech</span></p><p class="caption">Many exoplanets may have no atmosphere at all.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Eclipses</h2><p>Another approach involves observing a transiting planet and its star as they orbit one another. The goal here is to collect some observations when the planet is visible (but not in transit), and others when it is eclipsed by its star.</p><p>With some effort, astronomers can subtract one observation from the other, effectively cancelling the hugely dominant contribution of light from the star. Once that light is removed, what we have left is the day-side spectrum of the planet.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC/Caltech)</span></p><p class="caption">Star + Planet] - [Star] = [Planet]</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>The future</h2><p>Astronomers are constantly developing new techniques to glean information about exoplanetary atmospheres. One that shows particular potential, especially for the search for planets like our own, is the use of <a href="http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~vijay/Papers/Polarisation/Planetary%20Atmospheres/bailey-07.pdf">polarised light</a>.</p><p>Most of the light we receive from planets is reflected, originating with the host star. The process of reflection brings with it a subtle benefit - the reflected light gains a degree of polarisation. Different surfaces yield different levels of polarisation, and that polarisation might just hold the key to finding the first oceans beyond the solar system.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Wikimedia, CC BY-SA</span></p><p class="caption">By rotating a polarising filter, we can block light of certain polarisation. This is how polarised sunglasses cut the glare from puddles and the ocean on a sunny day.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>These methods are still severely constrained by two factors: the relative faintness of the exoplanets, and their proximity to their host star. The ongoing story of exoplanetary science is therefore heavily focused on overcoming these observational challenges.</p><p>Further down the line, advances in technology and the next generation of telescopes may allow the light from an Earth-like planet to be seen directly. At that point, the task becomes (slightly) easier, in part because the planet can be observed for far longer, rather than just relying on eclipse/transit observations.</p><p>But even then, spectroscopy will be the way to go; the planets will still be just pale blue dots.</p><h2>What we have seen so far</h2><p>The exoplanets we have discovered to date are highly inhospitable to life as we know it. None of the planets studied so far would even be habitable to the most extreme of <a href="http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/extremophile.html">extremophiles</a>.</p><p>The planets whose atmospheres we have studied are primarily "hot Jupiters", giant planets orbiting perilously close to their host stars. As they skim their host's surface, they whizz around with periods of just a few days, yielding transits and eclipses with every orbit.</p><p>Because of the vast amounts of energy they receive from their hosts, many of these "hot Jupiters" are enormous, inflated far beyond the scale of our solar system's largest planet. That size, that heat and their speed, make them the easiest targets for our observations.</p><p>But as our technology has improved, it has also become possible to observe, through painstaking effort, some smaller planets, known as "super-Earths".</p><h2>Atmospheres of distant planets…</h2><p>The hot Jupiter <a href="http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/hd_189733_b/">HD189733</a> has one of the best understood planetary atmospheres beyond the solar system.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>NASA, ESA, M. Kornmesser</span></p><p class="caption">Artists impression of the broiling blue marble, HD 189733 b.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Observations by the Hubble Space Telescope, in 2013, suggest a deep-blue world, with a thick atmosphere of silicate vapour. Other studies have shown its atmosphere to contain significant amounts of water vapour, and carbon dioxide.</p><p>Overall, however, it appears to be a hydrogen-rich gas giant like Jupiter, albeit super-heated, with cloud tops exceeding 1,000 degrees. Beneath the cloud turps lies a widespread dust layer, featuring silicate and metallic salt compounds.</p><p>The young giant planets in the <a href="http://www.space.com/20231-giant-exoplanets-hr-8799-atmosphere-infographic.html">HR8799</a> system appear to have hydrogen-rich but complex atmospheres, with compounds such as methane, carbon monoxide and water. They are likely larger, younger, and hotter versions of our own giant planets - with their own unique subtleties.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Ben Zuckerman</span></p><p class="caption">A direct image of the four planets known to orbit the star HR 8799.</p></div><p></p></div></div>For the super-Earth <a href="http://www.space.com/14634-alien-planet-steamy-waterworld-gj1214b.html">GJ1214b</a> the lesson is to be careful about making conclusions. Early suggestions that this might be a "water world" or have a cloudless hydrogen atmosphere have since been superseded by models featuring a haze of hydrocarbon compounds (like on <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/whycassini/cassini20130605_prt.htm">Titan</a>), or grains of potassium salt or zinc sulphide.</p><p>While the search for Earth-like planets continues using ground- and space-based telescopes, exoplanetary scientists are eagerly awaiting the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/james-webb-telescope">JWST</a>.</p><p>That immense telescope, scheduled for launch in around October 2018, could mark the true beginning of the exciting search for distant atmospheric biomarkers and exoplanetary life.</p><p><em>Brad Carter, Amanda Bauer and Jonti Horner contributed to this post for The Conversation.</em></p><p></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-like-eat-food-grown-space-nasa-2015-11">This is what it's like to eat food grown in a 'space garden'</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="l5eWh2eDrtdBaSYSf1RiuC1DKIbTcscZ" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Here's how to search for alien life on distant planets

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>IEEC/Science-Wave/Guillem Ramisa; Shutterstock</span></p><p class="caption">An illustration of the exoplanet candidate Barnard's star b, also known as GJ 699 b.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong>Astronomers think they've found a "cold <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/super-earth" target="_blank" rel="noopener">super-Earth</a>" exoplanet orbiting Barnard's star.</strong></li><li><strong>Barnard's star less than 6 light-years away from us and the closest single-star system to our sun.</strong></li><li><strong>The new world is called Barnard's star b (or GJ 699 b) and is at least 3.2 times as massive as Earth.</strong></li><li><strong>It orbits in the "snow line" of its parent star: </strong><strong>a region at the edge of a star's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/habitable-zone" target="_blank" rel="noopener">habitable zone</a> where scientists suspect most rocky planets form.</strong></li><li><strong>This Earth-size <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/exoplanets" target="_blank" rel="noopener">exoplanet</a> may be the first to be photographed by a new generation of powerful telescopes.</strong></li></ul><p>Astronomers have suspected for decades that a nearby <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/red-dwarf-planets-proxima-b-aliens-2016-8">red dwarf star</a>, called Barnard's star, might be hiding an Earth-size planet.</p><p>On Wednesday, researchers revealed that they've discovered the first such exoplanet with about 99.2% certainty.</p><p>A team of dozens of scientists published that work in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0677-y" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nature</a>, and said there are even hints that a second world may lurk nearby.</p><p>Barnard's star is just 5.87 light-years away from Earth, making it the closest one-star system to us. Only <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/proxima-b-habitable-atmosphere-jwst-2016-9">Proxima Centauri</a>, a three-star system, is closer.</p><p>What's more, the newly discovered world is close enough to Earth - yet far enough from its blindingly bright star - to be photographed by an upcoming generation of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/giant-magellan-telescope-gmt-construction-2024-completion-2018-8">giant telescopes</a>.</p><p>"This is probably the first Earth-sized planet we will directly image by future missions," <a href="https://phl.upr.edu/about/abel_mendez" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Abel Méndez</a>, an astrobiologist at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo who wasn't involved in the study, told Business Insider.</p><p>The new world is currently known as Barnard's star b or, in other circles, GJ 699 b. The team who found it leaned on more than 20 years of telescope observations, and that data suggests the planet is at least 3.2 times more massive than Earth and has a 233-day-long year.</p><p>The world appears to orbit in the "snow line" of Barnard's star - a region just on the edge of the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/goldilocks-exoplanet-habitability-internal-heat-2016-8">habitable zone</a>, where liquid water can exist on the surface of a planet.</p><p>For that reason, scientists consider the possible planet to be a "cold super-Earth," and some are wondering if <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/alien-signals-search-for-extraterrestrial-intelligence-study-2018-10">alien life</a> might exist there.</p><h2>What it might be like on Barnard's star b</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>ESO/M. Kornmesser</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Barnard's star is not like the sun - it's an M-dwarf, which means it's smaller, cooler, less massive, and older than our own star.</p><p>"M dwarfs are prime targets for planetary searches because they favor the detection of small companions," Rodrigo F. Díaz, an astrophysicist at University of Buenos Aires who wasn't part of the research team, wrote in a Nature "<keyword id="6355005" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news">News</keyword> and Views" piece.</p><p>The newly discovered planet is about as far from its star as Mercury is from the sun. That's fairly close. However, next to a smaller and lower-temperature star, this puts Barnard's star b at the edge of its habitable zone in the snow line region.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>IEEC/Science-Wave/Guillem Ramisa</span></p><p class="caption">An illustration showing the sun in relation to Barnard's star and the Alpha Centauri triple-star system.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Practically, this means the surface temperature of Barnard's star b is likely -150 degrees Celsius. This is cold enough to freeze carbon dioxide solid into dry ice.</p><p>But bone-chilling temperatures doesn't mean the exoplanet is a dead world.</p><h2>Can a cold super-Earth be habitable?</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19048">NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute</a></span></p><p class="caption">Half of Jupiter's icy moon Europa as seen via images taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The surface of Europa - an icy moon that orbits Jupiter - is 10 degrees colder than the newly discovered world. And Ganymede - a smaller icy moon around Saturn - is about 20 degrees colder than that.</p><p>Yet both have expansive <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/water-space-volume-planets-moons-2016-10">oceans of salt water</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/earth-water-ice-volume-versus-planets-moons-2016-11">hiding below their crusts</a>, and there's growing <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jupiter-moon-europa-ocean-water-plume-evidence-2018-5">evidence</a> that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/enceladus-moon-ocean-water-organic-molecules-2018-6">organic molecules</a> are mixed into that liquid.</p><p>Plus, the researchers' estimate of the temperature of planet Barnard's star b assumes there's no atmosphere hugging the world. But there very well could be.</p><p>"Since the planet is more massive than Earth, it may retain a hydrogen atmosphere," <a href="https://www.saraseager.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sara Seager</a>, the deputy <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> director for NASA's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-space-telescope-tess-searches-for-alien-planets-2018-8">TESS mission</a> and an astrophysicist at MIT, told Business Insider.</p><p>It's not a far-fetched idea. Seager said all planets - even Earth - are born with a hydrogen atmosphere. This is because hydrogen is the dominant material in nebulas, the clouds of gas and dust out of which stars (and their planets) form.</p><p>"Hydrogen is a potent greenhouse gas and could conceivably keep the surface temperature warm enough for life, if the atmosphere pressure is high enough," Seager said.</p><p>Future ground observatories like the Extremely Large Telescope, or perhaps even the Giant Magellan Telescope, might be able to capture a small image of Barnard's star b. Some of the light that passes through or bounces off its atmosphere might even be sampled for indirect signs of life.</p><p>If Barnard's star b turns out to be a bust, future observations may discover it isn't alone.</p><p>"I don't discard the possibility of smaller Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone of Barnard's Star, now we know that Barnard has planets and there is plenty of space between the star and this new planet for a few small ones," Méndez said. </p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/stephen-hawking-warning-space-aliens-seti-2016-12">Stephen Hawking warned us about contacting aliens, but this astronomer says it's 'too late'</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Astronomers found a 'snowy' super-Earth less than 6 light-years away - and it may be the first planet we'll photograph beyond the solar system

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2015-24">Dana Berry</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div>A newly discovered exoplanet has a lot of astronomers excited, and for good reason.</p><p>The exoplanet, dubbed GJ 1132b, is about the size of Earth and lives in a solar system roughly 39 light-years from Earth, a team of scientists reported in the November 12, 2015, issue of the journal <a href="http://www.nature.com/articles/nature15762.epdf?referrer_access_token=vP55m5xCezvGOWNC6OxeTtRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0NFOl0SSdFIWpF8HZQJmLxXhec7IuHC7HqP4a3tNh4BwbIcSF8FGReMjhFy51w_yyiccSdN6Q54LJYxm9ZjTy7aU-K2PgbsdgqVymuQrZigW9vDpDuT43uTes1Y19hMVevlZ5Sy8GrQ6PbSSGFHWEqEMCLNX32qBYoKUvoVXqFKKDmvWTw7L8oTxFdqupjq_LDk4s0a8OSeJoUi9k7GfgT4peUB034PotkdlYrHahac9Exe9oW5NBNV8AGaaNP3c_XEbooeL5WoGTfu9CDexPkjkag5qqeuFpb0KUSPadOkRneeK1i1psJAs-JmjRCsi6WWDWKtTewhQhT2AygL_Z7E&amp;tracking_referrer=www.theguardian.com">Nature</a>.</p><p>Furthermore, the exoplanet is the closest rocky Earth-sized exoplanet ever discovered, by far.</p><p>The next closest is about three times farther away.</p><p>GJ 1132b's size and distance are what have astronomers like Drake Deming at the University of Maryland - who was not part of the study - saying that this planet is "arguably the most important planet ever found outside the solar system," he told <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/nov/11/earth-like-world-gj1132b-could-be-most-important-planet-ever-found-outside-the-solar-system?CMP=twt_a-science_b-gdnscience?CMP=twt_a-science_b-gdnscience">The Guardian</a>.</p><p>The reason is because GJ 1132b is close enough for astronomers to point their telescopes at it and sniff out any traces of an atmosphere.</p><h2>Atmospheric signatures of life</h2><p>Studying the atmospheres of exoplanets for signs of life is the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-will-humans-find-aliens-on-exoplanets-2015-5">next big step</a> in the search for extraterrestrial life beyond our solar system.</p><p>But it's an extremely difficult project because most Earth-sized planets - the exoplanets that astrobiologists think are most likely to harbor life - are too distant to study in any detail. </p><p>One of the ways astronomers determine the chemical composition of gases on planets in our own solar system is by studying the light passing through their atmospheric layers, like Earth's shown in the photo below with our crescent moon in the foreground:</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Thomson Reuters</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Chemical compounds and molecules interact differently with different energies of light, and, as a result, each molecule leaves a unique fingerprint that scientists can see when they map out the light over what is called a spectrum.</p><p>But when an object is hundreds of light-years away, it's nearly impossible to differentiate the light that's passing through an exoplanet's atmosphere from the light that's emanating from the larger, brighter host star.</p><h2>A significant stepping stone</h2><p>Now, GJ 1132b has changed that, offering astronomers a perfect specimen to test their instruments and methods for detecting life.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/7302574832/in/photolist-ikWvMo-9EqKjo-8bPGsc-S21e5-cJbM1-cbYeYU-dXfy42-4q46Lx-cbqnQ1-dXm98N-c8iBgs-cc9eAb-cc7w2s-6cw2At-cbVu4q-cbPDVq-c8iBao-c8iB5C-cbh5L5-bUA9QX-k8bvEn-oyirRd-bUsDSX-c8iAif-bkDozd-cbTcEG-cbqnWd-bUAZv8-5hZrjs-c8iA9h-dXfuxH-cbXR9f-bUzuxV-c8iAMo-c8iBtf-cbYZSJ-cbSNJG-c8iAVC-9obh7g-bUx8Q2-bUx8Uv-bUzurZ-cbXSeU-cbVu6U-84iNci-dKjVwD-cuMMw3-8rvjoP-4WqR7-cQZqYj">NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div>"It's nearby, it's Earth-like, and its star won't interfere," Deming told <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/nov/11/earth-like-world-gj1132b-could-be-most-important-planet-ever-found-outside-the-solar-system?CMP=twt_a-science_b-gdnscience?CMP=twt_a-science_b-gdnscience">The Guardian</a>.</p><p>This newly discovered exoplanet is, however, just a stepping stone.</p><p>The possibility of finding life on it is practically zero. GJ 1132b might be only 16% larger than Earth, but it's surface temperature is a balmy 450 degrees Fahrenheit.</p><p>"Our ultimate goal is to find a twin Earth, but along the way we've found a twin Venus," David Charbonneau, a co-author on the new paper and an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said in <a href="https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2015-24">a press release</a>. "We suspect it will have a Venus-like atmosphere, too, and if it does we can't wait to get a whiff."</p><p>The reason for these toasty temperatures is because GJ 1132b sits just 1.4 million miles from its host star - 26 times closer than Mercury is to our sun.</p><p>It takes just 1.6 days for GJ 1132b to complete a single orbit around its star, which is very different from our sun.</p><h2>The most common star in the galaxy</h2><p>The star is what is called a red dwarf, which astronomers suspect is the most common star throughout our home galaxy, the Milky Way.</p><p>Red-dwarf stars are cooler, smaller, and dimmer than our sun. The one that GJ 1132b is orbiting is about one-fifth the size of our sun and only emits about 1/200th the amount of light.</p><p>Here's a diagram comparing, to scale, the size of our sun with a red dwarf (second from the left) and Jupiter (far right):</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Uploaded by Esmera en on Wikipedia" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/56439a639dd7cc1a008c9157-960/browndwarfs_comparison_01.png"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_dwarf">Uploaded by Esmera en on Wikipedia</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Just because they're different from our sun, however, doesn't mean life couldn't spawn around them. It just means that the habitable zone - the region in space where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface - is closer to the star than it is for our sun.</p><p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21350899">Some astronomers estimate</a> that red-dwarf stars comprise 75% of all stars in the galaxy. This means that most of the exoplanets in our galaxy are likely orbiting red-dwarfs.</p><p>Whether any of those planets are habitable, however, is a subject of intense debate, which is why the discovery of GJ 1132b is so exciting. And while GJ 1132b is not likely habitable, it's possible that it has some neighbors that are.</p><p>To first spot GJ 1132b as it passed in front of the star, the researchers used the MEarth-South array, a group of telescopes at the Cerro-Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.</p><p>Now that they know it's there, the team has requested time on the Hubble Space Telescope (which observes the same type of light we see with our eyes) and the Spitzer Space Telescope (which observes longer wavelengths than Hubble, in the infrared regime) to study GJ 1132b more fully.</p><p>With the viewing powers of Hubble and Spitzer combined, the scientists could get a much broader spectrum of light to study even more chemical compounds than they otherwise would with just one of the telescopes. </p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/scientific-links-extraterrestrial-life-aliens-2015-11">Here's why aliens might actually exist</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="w3ZXBxeDolmQmCfI8DI7FIZrunatjOe8" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Astronomers are freaking out over this newly discovered Earth-sized planet - and for good reason

<p class="full"><div class="image-container" style="width:800px"><div class="image"><p class="source"><keyword id="6360409" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="NASA">NASA</keyword>'s Goddard <keyword id="41531" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="space">Space</keyword> Flight Center/S. Wiessinger</p></div></div></p>
<p>A newly-discovered <keyword id="46100" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="planet">planet</keyword>, Gj 504b, is still glowing from the heat of its formation, making it deep magenta in color. It's hard to stop staring at it.</p>
<p>The dark pink color is not the only thing that make G j504b special. It is also the lowest-mass planet to orbit a star like our sun that was detected using a technique called direct imaging — which means scientists could actually see what color it is.</p>
<p>It was found by astronomers from <a href="http://subarutelescope.org/Pressrelease/2013/08/04/index.html" target="_blank">the Strategic Explorations of Exoplanets and Disks with Subaru</a> (SEEDS), which images planets from the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii.</p>
<p>Most <keyword id="122247" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Exoplanets">exoplanets</keyword> are discovered using indirect techniques, like monitoring the light given off by their host star. Direct imaging is important for finding planets that are farther away from their host star. This method also provides a wealth of information about that planet, including luminosity, temperature, atmosphere, and orbit, <a href="http://subarutelescope.org/Pressrelease/2013/08/04/index.html" target="_blank">according to SEEDS.</a></p>
<p>GJ 504b is four times as massive but similar in size to Jupiter. In contrast, GJ 504b orbits its star, GJ 504, at nearly nine times the distance that Jupiter orbits our sun.</p>
<p>The fact that the giant gas planet is located so far from its central star and still able to obtain enough mass, is shaking up the traditional theory of how planets form, called the standard core-accretion model. At this point, the model can't explain how planets located beyond 30 astronomical units (30 times Earth's average distance from the sun) develop. GJ 504 b sits 43.5 AU from its star.</p>
<p>"At this point scientists cannot definitely say what led to the formation of GJ 504 b," according to SEEDS, since the "theory requires that Sun-like stars have very massive disks around them, and it is unlikely that they could obtain enough mass in such outer regions."</p>

We Can't Stop Staring At This New Glowing Pink Planet

<ul><li><keyword id="6360409" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="nasa" source="Orion">NASA</keyword> has shared a video imagining future space explorations.</li><li>These space vacations make it possible for us to easily explore planets like Venus, Saturn and even <keyword id="122247" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="exoplanets" source="Orion">exoplanets</keyword>.</li><li>It also imagines people living on Mars and watching rockets lift off from the planet.</li></ul>We might have all imagined what space explorations could look like. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/a-nasa-spacecraft-orbiting-mars-snapped-a-photo-of-the-perseverance-rover-in-the-crater-below/articleshow/86854080.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">NASA</a> has put those imaginations into a video and the vision is straight out of a sci-fi movie. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center shared a video that features space explorations to different celestial bodies like Venus, mars, exoplanets, and more. The video was inspired by a travel poster series "Visions of the Future" created by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.<br /><br />These are exotic vacations to outer space booked through the fictional Exoplanet Travel Bureau. In the very distant future you could be watching a rocket lift off in the distance from your home on Mars. The Exoplanet Travel Bureau could even let you float among the clouds of Venus while you’re safe inside an observatory. The video also envisions people inside a spacecraft approaching Enceladus, the sixth-largest moon of Saturn, and watching the moon’s geysers as they erupt.<br /><br />Possibly the most fascinating exploration of all is a space kayaker paddling in the oceans of Titan, Saturn’s biggest moon with the planet filling in the background. Similarly, a skydiver falls toward exoplanet HD HD 40307 g. That’s another fascinating site to see. <br /><br /><div type="Youtube" id="VQ5ujHQ888o" title="NASA's Visions of the Future" thumbUrl="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VQ5ujHQ888o/mqdefault.jpg"></div><br />Space tourists are also imagined standing on the surface of exoplanet Kepler-16b which has two suns. Another exoplanet to explore is 55 Cancri e and for this you would be observing its lava surface while inside a clear bubble supported by floating balloons. Space explorations could also reach us to exoplanet GJ 367 d, a world that could potentially contain liquid water.<br /><br />NASA’s vision to explore distant planets and unknown ones is very futuristic and unrealistic for now. But the possibilities are endless and if the future looks anything like this then future generations are in for a ride. <br /><br /><strong>SEE ALSO:</strong><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/chinas-new-hypersonic-missile-demonstrated-an-advanced-space-capability-that-caught-us-intelligence-by-surprise-report-says/articleshow/87083481.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">China's new hypersonic missile demonstrated an advanced space capability that caught US intelligence by surprise, report says</a><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/virgin-galactic-shares-plummet-after-company-says-it-will-delay-commercial-spaceflights-until-q4-2022/articleshow/87033535.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">Virgin Galactic shares plummet after company says it will delay commercial spaceflights until Q4 2022</a><br />

Here’s what space explorations in the very distant future could look like

<p>Humanity's first contact with aliens could be a breezy 24 years away. We sent a signal to an Earth-like planet that may host live - and we sent them a mixtape. </p><p>Humans just tried to contact intelligent aliens.<br />On Oct. 16, 17, and 18 a team of scientists sent a message to aliens. They sent the message via radio waves and transmitted it 9 different times. This helps ensure that all the information reaches its destination</p><p>What's in the message?</p><p>Thirty-three musical pieces, each 10 seconds long, a tutorial on how humans keep time, and when we will be listening for a response.</p><p>The message is headed for a nearby exoplanet named GJ 273b. GJ 273b is what astronomers call a "Super Earth".<br />It's slightly more massive than Earth and is within its star's habitable zone. GJ 273b is a good candidate for alien life.</p><p>This is the first radio message of its kind designed for a direct response at a specific time. GJ 273b lives in another star system 12 light years away.</p><p>That means if intelligent life responds we could make first contact in just 24 years.</p>

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