Astronomers have announced that they have discovered a new Earth-sized planet. Named Wolf 1069 b, this rare planet orbits its star in the habitable zone, where water can exist as liquid, vapor and ice.
Of the 5,000 confirmed exoplanets, only 60 are thought to be rocky like Earth and be in the habitable zone. But Earth-size or smaller ones make up only a fifth of them. Located 31 light-years from Earth, Wolf 1069 b is the sixth closest exoplanet to be Earth-like.
The concept of Earth-analogue is an interesting one. Because we don’t know the exact requirements for life to emerge, the best guess is often based on recreating our own planet’s environment. Basically, astronomers are looking for Earth twins with the logic of “if life emerged here, it could also arise elsewhere”. Wolf 1069 b isn’t exactly an Earth-twin, but close enough. This makes it an excellent candidate to seek life.
From the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Dr. “When we analyzed data from Star Wolf 1069, we discovered a signal with a clear, low horizon arc that appeared to be a roughly Earth-mass planet,” Diana Kossakowski said in a statement. It rotates at a distance equivalent to one-fifteenth of the distance.”
You might think this distance would be scorching for the planet, but Wolf 1069 is a star much smaller and weaker than our Sun. In fact, Wolf 1069 b, despite being so close to its star, receives about 65 percent of the radiation that the Earth receives from the Sun.
This intimacy has another strange effect. The planet probably orbits under a gravitational lock. Just as the moon always shows one side to Earth, this planet sees only one side of its star. In other words, one face experiences a perpetual day, while the other experiences a never-ending night. Models suggest that if the planet doesn’t have an atmosphere, its temperature is -23°C during the day, but if it does, the average temperature would be 13°C, good enough for habitability.
Unfortunately, the researchers think we’ll have to wait for next-generation telescopes like the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), which is currently under construction, to be built to confirm whether the planet has an atmosphere. “We’ll probably have to wait another decade for that,” Kossakowski says.
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