Astronomers Have Found a Super-Earth Near The Habitable Zone of Its Star

The tiny motion of a small star has revealed the existence of a super-Earth exoplanet, which is close to the Earth.

Astronomers have confirmed the existence of a world just 4 times the mass of Earth around a faint red dwarf called Ross 508, which is located just 36.5 light-years away. The world is likely to be rocky, rather than gaseous, because of what we know about planetary mass limits.

The discovery of the exoplanet, named Ross 508 b, is the first for a new survey using the National Astronomy Observatory of Japan's (NAOJ) Subaru Telescope in Hawaii.

The nature of what we believe those exoplanets to be makes it hard to find them. Earth is the only template we have because it is a relatively small planet that is close to a star. Thehabitable zone is what this is.

Mars falls inside the Sun's habitable zone, but they are the easiest to screen for.

Gas giants, which are too hot for liquid water, are the best places to look for exoplanets. It is more difficult to find other kinds of worlds.

The transit method is used to find exoplanets. This is the telescope NASA uses to hunt for exoplanets. An instrument stares at stars, looking for dips in their light, caused by an object regularly circling between us and the star.

The mass of the object can be calculated by using the depth of the transit and the light curve caused by larger planets.

3,858 exoplanets have been confirmed using this method.

The second most fruitful technique is the radial velocity method. Two bodies are locked in a mutual center of gravity and neither of them can move. The Sun's influence on the star's wobble on the spot is due to the planet's influence on the star.

The starlight star is moving very faintly. When it moves towards us, the light is compressed into bluer wavelength and stretched into redder wavelength. The technique is better at detecting smaller exoplanets.

The NAOJ led an international team of astronomy that used the Subaru Telescope to search for dim red dwarf stars for exoplanets. This allows for a search of red dwarf stars that are older and more established.

The campaign's first exoplanet, Ross 508 b, is described in a paper by astronomer Hiroki Harakawa of the Subaru Telescope. The world is around the star every 10.75 days.

You may have noticed, but Ross 508 is much smaller and fainter than the Sun. The stellar radiation that hits Ross is about the same as the solar radiation that hits Earth. The exoplanet is very close to the outside edge of its star's habitable zone.

The discovery is good news for the future. Ross 509 b transits its star. TESS, which was turned to the star's sector of the sky in April and May of this year, may have obtained enough transit data to discern if the exoplanet has an atmosphere. Scientists can use such observations to understand atmospheres of worlds that may be more hospitable.

One of the smallest, faintest stars discovered using radial velocity is Ross 508, which is 18 percent of the mass of the Sun. This suggests that the potential for future radial velocity surveys to uncover a vast trove of exoplanets and reveal the diversity of their planetary systems is high.

The team's research is available on arXiv.