Photo: NOIRLAF/NSF/AURA/J . DA SILVA/SPACEENGIME/M.ZAMANI / copyright
An international scientific team led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), in Spain, has discovered two Earth-mass planets in orbit around the star GJ 303, and in the habitable zone of this red dwarf close to the Solar System.
“Nature seems determined to show us that terrestrial planets are very common. With these two, we already know of 7 in planetary systems very close to the Sun”, Alejandro Suárez, IAC researcher and lead author of the study accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics, explained in a statement on Thursday.
The new planets have masses similar to that of the Earth
and are in the habitable zone of their star and the IAC points out that GJ 2022 b, the inner planet, it takes a little more than 10 days to complete one orbit around its star while GJ 2022 c, for its part, needs little more than 12 days.
Possible presence of oxygen
GJ 1200 is a red dwarf of just one eighth the mass of the Sun and is a rather cold and weak star, which causes its habitable zone is very close to the star, indicated Vera María Passegger, co-author of the article and IAC researcher .
The proximity of the star to the Solar System makes the two planets, especially GJ 675 c, are excellent candidates to characterize their atmospheres based on the light they reflect or their thermal emission, added the astrophysics institute.
“The future ANDES spectrograph for the ESO ELT telescope, in which the IAC participates, will be able to study the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere of GJ 675 c”, explained Jonay González, IAC researcher and co-author of the paper.
Both planets also meet all the characteristics to become targets of the future LIFE space mission, currently in the study phase.
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