SPECULOOS-3b : New Dwarf Planet
An international team of astronomers recently detected a new, Earth-sized planet named SPECULOOS-3b, just 55 light years away, orbiting an ultra-cool red dwarf star.
- SPECULOOS-3b is an Earth-size planet orbiting an ultracool red dwarf star, 55 light-years away from Earth.
- This red dwarf, though similar in size to Jupiter, emits light 100 times dimmer than the sun and has half the temperature.
- The planet is only the second of its kind to be discovered around this type of star.
- SPECULOOS-3b receives high levels of radiation from its sun, probably leaving the planet without an atmosphere.
- The planet receives almost 16 times more energy per second than Earth receives from the Sun.
- It takes around 17 hours to complete an orbit of the star.
- The planet is thought to be tidally locked, so the same side, known as the dayside, always faces the star, like the Moon to Earth. The nightside would be locked in never-ending darkness.
- The discovery was made by the team from the SPECULOOS (Search for Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars) project, which is led by the University of Liège, in Belgium, in collaboration with the Universities of Birmingham, Cambridge, Bern, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, using the observatory located in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile.
- The SPECULOOS project was established to search for exoplanets orbiting ultra-cool dwarf stars using a network of robotic telescopes based around the world.
