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Near-Earth, hot, rocky exoplanet discovered

The hot rocky exoplanet Gliese 486b, a super-Earth around the nearby star Gliese 486, a red dwarf smaller and colder than Helium, just 26.3 light-years from our planet, were discovered by European astronomers.

It is the third closest exoplanet ever found.

It is considered ideal, according to scientists, due to its proximity to the search for atmosphere in it, although due to its high temperature it is the existence of friendly conditions for the development of life is unlikely.

Researchers from the Spanish-German consortium CARMENES, led by planetary scientist Tryphon Trifonov of the German Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, made their observations with various ground-based and space-based telescopes and published in the journal Science.

“The Gliese 486b cannot be habitable, at least not in the way we know it here Earth. “It is not hot enough to be a lava world alone, but its temperature makes it suitable for studying a possible atmosphere,” Trifonov said.

Gliese 486b, perhaps, has retained some of its original atmosphere and on its dry surface there may be many volcanoes and some lava rivers flowing. The exoplanet is estimated to it only takes a day and a half for a complete orbit around its star (this is the length of the year), 2.5 million kilometers from it.

It is almost 30% larger than Earth, as its radius is about 1.3 times larger, while its mass is almost three times (2.8 times larger). Its surface temperature is around 430 degrees Celsius, slightly lower than Venus, while a human on its surface would feel a gravity 70% stronger than the earth.

“If the planet were 100 degrees hotter, its entire surface would be lava. “Its atmosphere would consist of gassed rocks,” said astrophysicist Jose Caballero of the Spanish Center for Astrobiology.

Over the past two and a half decades, astronomers have discovered more than 4,300 exoplanets, both rocky and non-rocky, few of which have similarities to Earth. The big challenge regarding “earthly” exoplanets is chemical analysis of a possible atmosphere, something that is expected to be possible with NASA’s James Webb Large US Space Telescope being launched this year and the future Ultra Large Telescope (ELT) under construction in Chile.

“Studying the atmosphere of Gliese 486b” could turn it into the ‘Rosette Column’ of extraterrestrials, at least as far as Earth-like planets are concerned, “said Caballero, referring to the discovery in 1799 of an inscription that helped archaeologists translate Egyptian hieroglyphics for the first time.

“Once the James Webb telescope is up and running, we plan to observe the Gliese 486b. “We are optimistic that in about two and a half to three years we can know whether this planet has an atmosphere or not and, if so, what its composition is,” Trifonov said.

(file photo)

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