Super Earth Discovered, Larger than Earth but Smaller than Neptune

Astronomers have discovered some evidence of an existing alien world. The new planet is not like any other planets in our solar system, as it is larger in size than the Earth but smaller than Neptune and its surface is locked with ice.

The frozen Super Earth is the second closest exoplanets known to science, but for now, no picture is available, as the telescopes were not able to photograph this planet. As soon as it is photographed, it will be a new world, the world will see.

The discovery of the new Earth is published this week in the Journal Nature and Astronomer Johanna Teske, who contributed the study said, “We're moving from science fiction to science reality. There's so much possibility there”.

The exoplanets' Sun is a tiny body known as Barnard’s Star, which is one of the solar system’s nearest neighbors. Barnard’s Star is long been regarded as the great white whale in the hunting of exoplanet. According to Carnegie astronomer Paul Butler, who is a co-author on the Nature paper, “It is just six light years from Sun and possibly twice as old”.

One of the main architects of exoplanet research, astronomer Peter van de Kamp, proposed more than 50 years ago that this star could host a planet. In the 1970s, British astronomers also studied the possibility of sending a starship without crew members, to probe the alien system. But in 1995, the first exoplanet discovery was confirmed and thus the search for a world around Barnard’s Star began.

A series of telescopes were unfolded covering three continents, which have set their sights on the Barnard’s Star, which allowed researchers to accumulate around 800 observations over the course of 20 years. The study authors also drew a number of data collected by amateur astronomers across the world. It is therefore made possible by the combined efforts of more than 50 researchers working at nearly 25 institutions of the world.

“Slowly a signal in our data came out of all the noise”, says astronomer Ignasi Ribas, sharing his first experience of the discovery. Ribas is the Director of the Institute of Space Studies in Catalonia, Spain and the main author of the Nature paper. Barnard’s Star periodic wobble suggests a large planet circles it once every 233 days.

Still, more about the planet, around the Barnard’s Star remains uncertain. Astronomers are not sure, whether the Super Earth is rocky like our Earth or it is built of gas and ice, like Neptune. But Astronomers calculations says, it must be at least three times as massive as Earth or it can be even larger.