Scientists recently found a planet that is too hot to live in, but apparently cool enough to feature a thick atmosphere, similar to the planet Venus. The planet is only 39 light-years away from Earth.
Science Daily reported that the collection of rocky planets that orbit distant stars had one added. The planet is cool enough to possibly host an atmosphere, subsequently allowing experts to study it in detail using the Hubble Space Telescope.
Astronomer David Charbonneau of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) said that the main goal is to find a twin Earth, although they have discovered a twin Venus in their search. Lead author Zachory Berta-Thompson of Massachusetts Institute of Technology added that the newfound planet is going to be a favorite among astronomers in the future.
"We suspect it will have a Venus-like atmosphere, too, and if it does, we can't wait to get a whiff,” Charbonneau said in a CBC report.
The planet, called GJ 1132b, orbits a red dwarf star, which is about one-fifth the size of the Sun. The star is fainter and cooler compared to the Sun. GJ 1132b orbits around it every 1.6 days at a distance of about 1.4 million miles. In effect, the planet has a temperature of around 450 degrees Fahrenheit, which would generally boil off any water that may have existed in the planet before. However, it is still capable of having an atmosphere. One light-year represents 9.44 trillion kilometers. The planet has a distance of about 370 trillion kilometers from Earth. Being outside the solar system, GJ 1132b is categorized as an exoplanet.
GJ1132b was discovered by the MEarth-South array in Chile in May 2015, which was looking for terrestrial worlds that orbit red dwarf stars. The planet is 16 percent bigger than Earth and has a mass 60 percent greater than Earth. The planet is also rocky and has an Earth-like gravitational force. Humans on GJ 1132b would be 20 percent heavier than on Earth. It is also possible for the planet to have siblings. The research team is planning to delve more into the system to possibly find other planets similar to GJ 1132b.
"If we find this pretty hot planet has managed to hang onto its atmosphere over the billions of years it's been around, that bodes well for the long-term goal of studying cooler planets that could have life," Berta-Thompson stated.
The research team reported their findings in the science journal Nature.