4 rocky exoplanets found around Barnard’s Star, one of the sun’s nearest neighbors

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Scientists have confirmed that there are four small rocky planets that revolve around the Bernard star – the second closest star system on the ground – using a specialized tool on the Great Gemini Telescope in Hawaii. After only six years of us, all worlds are very hot to support life as we know it.

This discovery is particularly exciting, Make up Ritvik Bastant, a student at the University of Chicago and author of a paper on the new discovery. This is because, as he said, Bernard’s star is basically our cosmic neighbor, but we do not know much about it.

There were many allegations External planets It revolves around the Bernard star over the years, dating back to the 1960s. Bernard star is a Red dwarfAlso known as M-Dwarf, which is noticeable for the fastest appropriate movement, in reference to its visual movement in the sky of the night, from any star discovered so far.

Recently, in 2024, astronomers who used Spresso Spectrograph claimed to the very large telescope in Chile Discover one planetAnd the evidence for three others. Now, a team led by Jacob Ben and Bacant at the University of Chicago confirmed behind the suspicion of the presence of the four planets.

“We were allowed near the Bernard star to monitor this even during the bad weather nights, because its brightness made it available even under homosexuality. This enabled us to collect more data, which ultimately leads to the discovery of these low -mass planets.”

The main tool used in the team’s notes was Maroon-X, which is a visit to Gemini North. Maroon-X measures the “radiological speed”-lightly back away from the Bernard star, as it revolves around the center of the joint mass between him and the four orbits planets. They are all larger than land. In fact, they are some of the least external planets that have ever discovered.

The deepest planet in the system is Planet (D) (planets are named after the discovery arrangement, not the distance from the star), which has only 26 % mass That the earth And Orbss Barnard’s Star every 2.34 days at a distance of 1.7 million miles (2.8 million km/0.0188 Astronomical units). Next is the Planet B: The planet that was first identified in espresso data in 2024. This planet has a mass of 30 % of the Earth, and its star rotates every 3.15 days at a distance of 2.13 million miles (3.4 million km/0.0229 African Union).

Planet C is the heavy weight of the handful, with a mass of 33.5 % of the Earth. It revolves around the Barnard star at a distance of 2.55 million miles (4.1 million km/0.0274 AU) and has a tropical period of 4.12 days.

The first three planets were confirmed using only Maroon-X notes. To confirm the fourth planet, E, the Maroon-X data must be combined with Espears measurements to detect a planet with only 19 % of the Earth’s mass, which revolves around the Parrenard star every 6.74 days at a distance of 3.56 million miles (5.7 million km/0.0381 AU).

These worlds are incredibly compressed in terms of distance to each other, with only 372,820 miles (600,000 km) between planets D and B, and 434,960 miles (700,000 km) between B and C. For comparison, the medium distance between the earth and the earth moon It is only 238,600 miles (384,000 km). Imagine the presence of a planet on the doorstep of our door at this distance only twice!

However, this is how things are arranged around the Bernard star.

For more clear contradiction, NASA Parker Solar ProbeAnd, which actually dives into the solar rose, approaches up to 3.9 million miles (6.2 million km) on our surface sun. The orbits of all four planets can be easily proportional to the Parker’s Solar Probe. To enhance the contrast between us Solar power system The Star Planetary System in Bernard, the closest planet to the sun in our solar system, MercuryIt has an average distance of 36 million miles (58 million km) between it and the sun.

The small separatisms between the planets surrounding the Bernard Star also raises another world system around a red dwarf, Trappist-1Where seven planets are filled 5.75 million miles (9.267 million km) from their central star.

A red dwarf like a Bernard star is completely different from our sun. It has only 16 % of our sun mass, and 19 % diameter. As such, his planetary system is reduced. Red dwarves can also be very volatile, as they stem from clouds from charged molecules and frequent radiation fridge more than our sun, which can strip worlds close to their atmosphere. However, the red dwarf activity decreases with age, and the age of the Bernard star system is about 10 billion years.

However, none of the planets that have been found so far will be of life as we know them anyway, because they are very close and very hot. Instead, and A suitable area for housing About the Bernard star coincides with the worlds further, with tropical periods ranging from 10 and 42 days. To date, no planets have been found far from the star.

“With the current data collection, we can exclude with the confidence of any largest planets from 40 to 60 % of the Earth’s mass near the inner and exterior edges of the living area,” SBASANT said .. “In addition, we can exclude the existence of the Earth’s planets with tropical periods of up to a few years. We are also confident that the system does not host a gas gas.”

Maroon-X managed to collect 112 measurements for the Barnard star throughout the period 2021-2023. Meanwhile, Espesso recorded 149 measurements of the radial speed of the star with feet, but are small. This is not sufficient to exclude the possibility of any other small planets that may lie in the area suitable for housing.

“We also have additional data from 2024 that have not been used in this discovery,” said Basant. “If you have to choose a number, I can estimate that 50 other data points will be perfect for achieving the best possible sensitivity with the current tools.”

Maroon-X is specifically designed to measure radial speeds of red dwarf systems. Focus on the red dwarves with two parts. One of the reasons is that it is the most populated type of stars Galaxy And the formation of the majority of stars closest to us. Second, their small blocks make it easy to discover fluctuation in their movements caused by the rocky planets. It was placed on an eight-meter-long telescope like Gemini to the north, and is able to view in the nearby infrared where the red dwarves like the Bernard star are brighter, Maroon-X is perfectly placed to search for these planetary systems.

“This discovery was possible because of a group of factors,” Paant said. “If you have to choose one, it will be the unprecedented accuracy of the next generation tools like Maroon-X and Espresso.”

Unfortunately, the four planets of the Bernard star do not pass, or pass in front of their star, from our point of view. This means that we cannot monitor the secondary eclipse (where the planets move behind its star, which allows us to put the star light from the light of the star and the planets, to leave it with the light of the planets only) or the spectral analysis of crossing (where the stars lamp is filtered through the atmosphere of the planets, if they contain one, which reveals malls that may be present).

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However, “Hile, these planets are not exceeding, their thermal emissions can be studied with[the[the[[theJames Web Telescope for Space]“This is still difficult,” says Basant.

Meanwhile, Basant and Bean and their team intend to continue to search for more planets around the Barnard star. After all, we are in the process of neighbors – and it is time that we found and got to know this adjacent planetary system.

The results were published on March 11 in Astronomical physical magazine messages.