Smallest Exo-planet Found

By Nancy Atkinson - April 10, 2008 at 6:49 AM UTC | Exoplanets
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We're getting closer to finding an Earth-like planet out there in the universe. Spanish astronomers announced the discovery of the smallest exo-planet found to date, located 30 light years from earth. "I think we are very close, just a few years away, from detecting a planet like Earth," team leader Ignasi Ribas said at a news conference on Wednesday April 9, 2008. The newest planet, "GJ 436T" was discovered by a team led by Ribas through its gravitational pull on other planets already discovered around the same star in the constellation of Leo.

The planet has a mass five times the size of Earth, which makes it the smallest extrasolar planet among the roughly 300 identified so far, Ribas said. The astronomers believe the planet could possibly be a rocky, Earth-like planet because of its size. Most of the planets found so far are gas giants like Jupiter.

But Ribas said the new planet is uninhabitable due to the close distance that it orbits its star, which is far less than that between the earth and the sun. Planet GJ 436 orbits close to its small, relatively cool star once every 5.2 Earth days and rotates every 4.2 Earth days.

This latest planet was found by analyzing distortions in the orbit of another, larger planet around the star GJ 436, a technique similar to that used more than 100 years ago to discover Neptune.

"Planets with a mass similar to Earth situated at a distance from their star which allows liquid water on the surface, in other words, a habitable planet, we're probably a bit further from (discovering those), but we surely will in a decade," said Ribas of Spain's CSIC scientific research institute.

Original News Source:

Reuters

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com