A research team with Swiss participation has discovered a new planet. It orbits one of our closest stars, Barnard’s Star, six light-years from the Sun.
The discovery, published Tuesday in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, is the result of four years of observations with the Espresso instrument on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile’s Atacama Desert, the University of Bern announced.
According to ESO, a team of astronomers from the European Southern Observatory (ESO), which includes researchers from the Universities of Bern and Geneva, is looking for signals of exoplanets in the so-called habitable zone of Barnard’s star.
It is the region on the surface of the planet where water can be liquid. This condition is considered essential for the origin of life.
However, this is not the case with “Barnard B”, as the new exoplanet is named: its surface is 125 degrees Celsius. According to researchers at the University of Bern, the discovery is even more important.
“The discovery of Barnard B is important because it is one of the smallest exoplanets we have discovered to date, but it is in our interstellar neighborhood,” said Yann Alibert, associate director of the Center for Space and Habitat. Cited in Communication, from University of Bern.
“This provides us with a unique opportunity to study nearby planets and better understand their formation and motion within a planetary system.”
