Discovery of a Nearby Planet Orbiting Barnard’s Star: A New Step in Exoplanet Exploration

Scientists have made an amazing discovery of a planet near Earth. The planet’s mass is at least half that of Venus, and it might be just one of many planets, astronomers say. The planet was found orbiting the closest single star to us.

The planet orbits Barnard’s Star and has been named Barnard b. It could be one of several planets waiting to be discovered around this nearby star.

It was observed using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT).

The newly discovered planet, Barnard b, has a mass of at least half that of Venus, with a year on the planet lasting just slightly more than three Earth days.

The findings also suggest there could be three other potential exoplanet candidates in different orbits around the star. Barnard’s Star is six light years away from Earth, making it the second closest star system – after the Alpha Centauri triple star system – and the closest single star to us.

Because of its proximity, Barnard’s Star is a prime target in the search for Earth-like exoplanets.

Until now, there had been no confirmation of a planet orbiting Barnard’s Star.

Jonay González Hernández, a researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands in Spain and the lead author of the study, said, “Even though it took a long time, we were always confident that we would find something.”

In the study, the researchers were looking for signs of potential exoplanets within Barnard’s Star’s habitable or temperate zone, the range where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface.

Barnard b orbits its star at a distance 20 times closer than Mercury does to the Sun.
It orbits its star in 3.15 Earth days, and its surface temperature is around -125 degrees Celsius.

Mr. González Hernández added, “Barnard b is among the least massive exoplanets ever discovered and is one of the rare few with a mass smaller than Earth’s.”

“But the planet is very close to its host star, much closer than the habitable zone.

“Even though the star is about 2,500 degrees cooler than our Sun, it’s still too hot for liquid water to exist on the surface.”

The results, published in the *Astronomy & Astrophysics* journal, are the outcome of observations conducted over the past five years using the VLT located at the Paranal Observatory in Chile.