Did Scientists Discover the Earth's Closest Exoplanet That Could Support Life?

Alexis Thornton

6 months ago

Scientists Announce Discovery of Possible Habitable Exoplanet Near Earth

Two teams of scientists have discovered an exoplanet on which people could theoretically live. A team from the Astrobiology Center in Tokyo and a team from the University of Edinburgh and University College London published their findings on May 23, 2023, in The Astrophysical Journal Letters and Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Both teams used NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite data to find the planet. The teams say that the exoplanet is about 40 light-years away. Therefore, it would take about 225,000 years to reach the exoplanet in the fastest spacecraft currently manufactured. Yet, this exoplanet in the Pisces constellation is the closest option ever considered where life could possibly live. The possible planet, which they have named Gliese 12b, is a little smaller than the Earth, but it is bigger than Venus. It rotates around a red dwarf star in about 12.8 days. Since it is about 60% closer to its star than the Earth is to the Sun, it absorbs much more energy from the red star than the Earth does from the Sun. Researchers believe that the planet has a surface temperature of about 107 degrees. This makes it notably cooler than most of the 5,000 exoplanets scientists have discovered.