Using the latest observational data, a team of astronomers from the University of California, Irvine, and international partners have discovered an exoplanet located in the "habitable zone" of its parent star, a region where temperatures are expected to allow liquid water to exist on the planet's surface. Given that water is an essential element for all known life on Earth, this discovery raises the possibility that life-supporting conditions could exist on the planet.
The planet, named GJ 251 c, is classified as a "super-Earth" because of its Earth-like rock structure and its mass, which is about four times that of Earth. The research team published relevant analysis results in the Astronomical Journal. Paul Robertson, associate author of the paper and associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine, said: "The discovery of a habitable zone super-Earth at such a close distance—only 18 light-years away—is of extremely high scientific value. From a cosmic scale, this planet is almost 'next door' to us."
GJ 251 c orbits an M-type dwarf star, the most common and oldest type of star in the Milky Way. M dwarfs usually exhibit strong stellar activity (such as sunspots and flares). These activities sometimes interfere with astronomers' work of detecting planets through radial velocity signals, causing misjudgments. However, this high-precision infrared observation and data analysis confirmed the existence of GJ 251 c.
Scientists from the University of California, Irvine, said that the planet's relative proximity provides an excellent opportunity for direct imaging observations by a new generation of large ground-based telescopes such as the University of California Thirty Meter Telescope in the future, which is expected to confirm whether liquid water really exists on its surface.
This discovery is due to the synergy of high-precision instruments such as the "Habitable Zone Planet Explorer" and NEID, which verify the existence of exoplanets by monitoring the subtle shifts in the star's spectrum caused by the weak gravitational pull of the planet on the host star (the "radial velocity effect").
Lead author Dr. Corey Beard said: "We are currently at the forefront of technology and analysis methods. Although our statistical analysis has significant scientific significance, it is limited by instruments and detection methods and still requires direct imaging by next-generation telescopes for further verification. We hope that this discovery will push the exoplanet science community to devote more attention and follow-up research resources before the arrival of a new generation of observation capabilities."
Compiled from /ScitechDaily