Newly discovered super-Earth orbits in and out of its star’s habitable zone. Could life survive its extreme climate?
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A super -Earth planet that decreases inside and exited from the area of its suitable star for housing has been discovered only 19.7 light years.
The planet, known as HD 20794D, is more than its star than Mars is from the sun, and on the other end of its orbit, the closest thing to be Venus. Each orbit begins the planet outside the area suitable for housing, where the atmosphere is very cold for liquid water, before it passes through the area suitable for housing to the inner edge where temperatures rise for a short period, before the planet retreats again.
The planet provides a great target for the next generation of telescopes to investigate John, and for scientists to test the maximum limits of planetary housing. “that it Shine ” statement. Dumusque is a member of the team that discovered and distinguished the new planet.
HD 20794D has a 6.6 -time mass greater than land It was found by astronomers by using espresso spectra and playing the European Southern Observatory telescopes in Chile. These tools measure the so -called “radiological speed” – the amount that the stars sparkle around the center of the mass that they share with their planets. In general, the greater the peak, the greater the mass of the planet. It is the volatile star who betrayed the presence of HD 20794D – Astronomers have not noticed directly HD 20794D, and they did not take a picture of him or even see her in crossing so far.
The star concerned, HD 20794-It is also known as 82 Eridani-is a yellow G6 star that is slightly faint and less huge than our star sun. It is also relatively bright in Night sky,, Bright in size 4.3, and it is bright enough to be seen with an indirect eye in the constellation of the Esidan, the river. On the other hand, many Stars Hosting External planets It is very faded so that it cannot be seen with naked eyes, which represents HD 20794 as a special thing.
Due to the proximity of the HD 20794 system for us, it has been observed well over the past twenty years and has a somewhat mixed history when it comes to foreign flavor. HD 20794D revolves around its star with other other boats, set B and C, which revolves around its star every 18.3 and 89.6 days in a row. This was discovered in 2011 by a team of astronomers in Geneva, including Dumusque. In the same thing timeThe team found evidence of a third planet, with a tropical period of 40 days, but this appeared later as wrong. Just now the real third planet is clear in the data.
“We have analyzed data for years, and we carefully pursue pollution sources,” said Michael Kritinier of Oxford University. Cretignier was previously in Geneva, where he developed an algorithm called Yarara to search carefully in data and choose the dimmed radiological signal on the properties of the background noise. Yara -Yara has proven vitality in the efforts made to confirm HD 20974D as real.
What is more prominent in this new planet, however, is its orbit. while Johannes Kepler We learned that there is no completely circular planetary orbit, most of which are committed to a very close orbit of being a circle. Some worlds, however, have more extended orbits. The degree of elongation, known as the weird, is measured, on a scale 0 (for the perfect circle) to 1 (plus). landThe orbital phases is 0.017; Mars‘It is 0.055, and MercuryIt is 0.206.
HD 20794D or more outstretched than any planet in Solar power systemWith the weird of 0.4. Its orbit is 647 days a day around the clock, which allows you to have an idea of where he is in his planetary system. However, the eccentric means that its orbit ranges from 2 Astronomical units (300 million km/186 million miles – twice at the distance of the Earth – the back) from its star to approximately 0.75 AU (112 million km/69.7 million miles).
In the context of our solar system, Mars – on our external edge A suitable area for housing Our sun rotates at an average distance of 1.5 astronomical units (228 million km/141 million miles), while VenusOn the inner edge of the area suitable for housing, orbits at 0.72 astronomical units (108 million km/67 million miles) from our sun.
The climate must be on such a world outside the stranger. Winter will be long and difficult, and life may be struggled to stay on a planet that spends most of its frozen time. After that, the spring will come, the ice melts, followed by a short but intense summer when the oceans begin to evaporate, only to deposit again like rain in the fall and snow in the winter. Whether life can live in such an unknown extremist world.
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On the face of the earth, our chapters are driven by our planet 23.4 degrees inclination; For example, the northern summer occurs when the northern hemisphere of our planet tends to the sun. Regardless of HD 20794D, their seasons are determined instead by their progress along its eccentric orbit. It is a wonderful planet.
The assets of this large degree of eccentric lies in the distant HD 20794D past. He says: “The weirdness of the planets is the remnants of the planet and lines during the first days of the system of planets.” Although other planets, B and C, do not contain eccentric orbits, something may have disturbed HD 20794D orbit after a long period of its formation.
“For example, there could be another giant planet in the early stage of the composition,” Dumusk said. “The giant planet can affect the planet D, then this giant planet was expelled outside the system.”
The discovery of this exciting new world has been detailed Astronomy and astronomical physics.
