Astronomers have discovered a potentially habitable new planet estimated to be 6 percent larger than Earth.
The planet, named HD 137010 b, is about 146 light distances from Earth and has conditions similar to those of Mars.
The candidate planet orbiting a Sun-like star was identified by a team of researchers from Britain, the US, Australia and Denmark.
The international team used data collected in 2017 by the NASA Kepler Space Telescope extended mission, known as K2, to unlock this breakthrough.
What is HD 137010 b planet?
According to researchers, the planet has “about a 50 percent chance of being in the habitable zone” of a Sun-like star it orbits.
HD 137010 b harbors Mars-like conditions because the stars orbiting it are relatively cooler and dimmer than our Sun. According to their observations, published in Astrophysical diary lettersthe temperature on the planet could potentially be below -70 degrees Celsius.
Dr. Chelsea Huang, a researcher at the University of Southern Queensland in Australia, said the planet has an orbit similar to Earth’s, lasting about 355 days.
“What’s so exciting about this particular Earth-sized planet is that its star is just one star [about] 150 light years away from our solar system,” Huang said.
‘Exciting and promising discovery’
Speaking about the significance of the discovery, Huang said: “The team’s initial reaction to the discovery was that this couldn’t possibly be true. But we double-checked and triple-checked everything and… it’s a textbook example of a planet transiting.”
Dr. Sara Webb, an astrophysicist at Swinburne University, sheds light on the ‘exciting’ nature of the discovery, but further extensive research is needed to categorize the possible candidate as an exoplanet.
Webb said, “There is only one transit [detected]and in planetary science we typically talk about a gold standard of three [detections].”
Recognizing the features of the Earth-like planet as an exciting possibility, Webb continued: “It could also be something like a super snowball. Essentially a big, icy world that potentially contains a lot of water, but much of it is frozen.”
