Planet B? Meet the best option to replace Earth

Scientists have searched for a planet similar to Earth

Scientists have searched for a planet similar to Earth, The exoplanet has been named Gliese 12b, This star is 27% the size of our Sun and 60% of its temperature, What determines if a planet is habitable?, A hot but apparently habitable planet, The nearest Earth-sized world to date, The next step: analyzing its atmosphere, How Gliese 12b was discovered, Easier if they orbit red dwarfs, Still unknown if there is an atmosphere and water, Without water, it would resemble Venus and be uninhabitable, Breaking out the James Webb Space Telescope, Understanding Gliese 12b will help us better understand Earth

The good news is that two teams of scientists, one from The Astrophysical Journal Letters and the other from the Royal Astronomical Society, have discovered a theoretically habitable planet the size of Earth.

The exoplanet has been named Gliese 12b

Scientists have searched for a planet similar to Earth, The exoplanet has been named Gliese 12b, This star is 27% the size of our Sun and 60% of its temperature, What determines if a planet is habitable?, A hot but apparently habitable planet, The nearest Earth-sized world to date, The next step: analyzing its atmosphere, How Gliese 12b was discovered, Easier if they orbit red dwarfs, Still unknown if there is an atmosphere and water, Without water, it would resemble Venus and be uninhabitable, Breaking out the James Webb Space Telescope, Understanding Gliese 12b will help us better understand Earth

This planet is orbiting a cold red dwarf star in the constellation Pisces.

This star is 27% the size of our Sun and 60% of its temperature

Scientists have searched for a planet similar to Earth, The exoplanet has been named Gliese 12b, This star is 27% the size of our Sun and 60% of its temperature, What determines if a planet is habitable?, A hot but apparently habitable planet, The nearest Earth-sized world to date, The next step: analyzing its atmosphere, How Gliese 12b was discovered, Easier if they orbit red dwarfs, Still unknown if there is an atmosphere and water, Without water, it would resemble Venus and be uninhabitable, Breaking out the James Webb Space Telescope, Understanding Gliese 12b will help us better understand Earth

According to both studies, the star around which this planet orbits is much smaller than the Sun, yet Gliese 12b still lies within the habitable zone.

What determines if a planet is habitable?

Scientists have searched for a planet similar to Earth, The exoplanet has been named Gliese 12b, This star is 27% the size of our Sun and 60% of its temperature, What determines if a planet is habitable?, A hot but apparently habitable planet, The nearest Earth-sized world to date, The next step: analyzing its atmosphere, How Gliese 12b was discovered, Easier if they orbit red dwarfs, Still unknown if there is an atmosphere and water, Without water, it would resemble Venus and be uninhabitable, Breaking out the James Webb Space Telescope, Understanding Gliese 12b will help us better understand Earth

For a planet to be classified as habitable, it must be at an ideal distance from the star it orbits. This distance determines whether liquid water can exist.

A hot but apparently habitable planet

Scientists have searched for a planet similar to Earth, The exoplanet has been named Gliese 12b, This star is 27% the size of our Sun and 60% of its temperature, What determines if a planet is habitable?, A hot but apparently habitable planet, The nearest Earth-sized world to date, The next step: analyzing its atmosphere, How Gliese 12b was discovered, Easier if they orbit red dwarfs, Still unknown if there is an atmosphere and water, Without water, it would resemble Venus and be uninhabitable, Breaking out the James Webb Space Telescope, Understanding Gliese 12b will help us better understand Earth

Assuming the exoplanet has no atmosphere, scientists estimated its surface temperature to be around 42C (107F). Not great for those who hate the heat...

The nearest Earth-sized world to date

Scientists have searched for a planet similar to Earth, The exoplanet has been named Gliese 12b, This star is 27% the size of our Sun and 60% of its temperature, What determines if a planet is habitable?, A hot but apparently habitable planet, The nearest Earth-sized world to date, The next step: analyzing its atmosphere, How Gliese 12b was discovered, Easier if they orbit red dwarfs, Still unknown if there is an atmosphere and water, Without water, it would resemble Venus and be uninhabitable, Breaking out the James Webb Space Telescope, Understanding Gliese 12b will help us better understand Earth

“We’ve found the nearest, transiting, temperate, Earth-size world located to date,” said Masayuki Kuzuhara, assistant professor at the Astrobiology Center in Tokyo and co-leader of one of the research teams with Akihiko Fukui, an assistant project professor at the University of Tokyo.

The next step: analyzing its atmosphere

Scientists have searched for a planet similar to Earth, The exoplanet has been named Gliese 12b, This star is 27% the size of our Sun and 60% of its temperature, What determines if a planet is habitable?, A hot but apparently habitable planet, The nearest Earth-sized world to date, The next step: analyzing its atmosphere, How Gliese 12b was discovered, Easier if they orbit red dwarfs, Still unknown if there is an atmosphere and water, Without water, it would resemble Venus and be uninhabitable, Breaking out the James Webb Space Telescope, Understanding Gliese 12b will help us better understand Earth

Once temperate, Earth-sized planets have been identified, scientists can analyze them to determine what elements their atmospheres contain, especially whether they have the water essential for sustaining life.

How Gliese 12b was discovered

Scientists have searched for a planet similar to Earth, The exoplanet has been named Gliese 12b, This star is 27% the size of our Sun and 60% of its temperature, What determines if a planet is habitable?, A hot but apparently habitable planet, The nearest Earth-sized world to date, The next step: analyzing its atmosphere, How Gliese 12b was discovered, Easier if they orbit red dwarfs, Still unknown if there is an atmosphere and water, Without water, it would resemble Venus and be uninhabitable, Breaking out the James Webb Space Telescope, Understanding Gliese 12b will help us better understand Earth

Both teams of scientists used publicly collected data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a telescope that observes tens of thousands of stars each month and tracks their brightness changes. This activity can lead, as in this case, to finding orbiting exoplanets.

Easier if they orbit red dwarfs

Scientists have searched for a planet similar to Earth, The exoplanet has been named Gliese 12b, This star is 27% the size of our Sun and 60% of its temperature, What determines if a planet is habitable?, A hot but apparently habitable planet, The nearest Earth-sized world to date, The next step: analyzing its atmosphere, How Gliese 12b was discovered, Easier if they orbit red dwarfs, Still unknown if there is an atmosphere and water, Without water, it would resemble Venus and be uninhabitable, Breaking out the James Webb Space Telescope, Understanding Gliese 12b will help us better understand Earth

What made it easier for astronomers to find this exoplanet is that it orbits a red dwarf star. The relatively small size of these stars gives a greater dimming effect during each transit.

Still unknown if there is an atmosphere and water

Scientists have searched for a planet similar to Earth, The exoplanet has been named Gliese 12b, This star is 27% the size of our Sun and 60% of its temperature, What determines if a planet is habitable?, A hot but apparently habitable planet, The nearest Earth-sized world to date, The next step: analyzing its atmosphere, How Gliese 12b was discovered, Easier if they orbit red dwarfs, Still unknown if there is an atmosphere and water, Without water, it would resemble Venus and be uninhabitable, Breaking out the James Webb Space Telescope, Understanding Gliese 12b will help us better understand Earth

At the moment, scientists are unsure of what exactly constitutes this planet’s atmosphere, well, if it even has one, and if there is water. Palethorpe is setting the bar low.

Without water, it would resemble Venus and be uninhabitable

Scientists have searched for a planet similar to Earth, The exoplanet has been named Gliese 12b, This star is 27% the size of our Sun and 60% of its temperature, What determines if a planet is habitable?, A hot but apparently habitable planet, The nearest Earth-sized world to date, The next step: analyzing its atmosphere, How Gliese 12b was discovered, Easier if they orbit red dwarfs, Still unknown if there is an atmosphere and water, Without water, it would resemble Venus and be uninhabitable, Breaking out the James Webb Space Telescope, Understanding Gliese 12b will help us better understand Earth

“There could be no water, and then we know a runaway greenhouse effect has already happened on this planet and it’s more like Venus,” she said. “There could be water, in which case it’s more like us… or there are signatures that can be detectable that would be able to show you that the runaway greenhouse effect is in progress so it could be losing water.”

Breaking out the James Webb Space Telescope

Scientists have searched for a planet similar to Earth, The exoplanet has been named Gliese 12b, This star is 27% the size of our Sun and 60% of its temperature, What determines if a planet is habitable?, A hot but apparently habitable planet, The nearest Earth-sized world to date, The next step: analyzing its atmosphere, How Gliese 12b was discovered, Easier if they orbit red dwarfs, Still unknown if there is an atmosphere and water, Without water, it would resemble Venus and be uninhabitable, Breaking out the James Webb Space Telescope, Understanding Gliese 12b will help us better understand Earth

Both teams of scientists are preparing to conduct spectroscopic analyses through this powerful telescope. This method captures starlight shining through the atmosphere of an exoplanet and identifies which wavelengths are absorbed by certain molecules, revealing their presence.

Understanding Gliese 12b will help us better understand Earth

Scientists have searched for a planet similar to Earth, The exoplanet has been named Gliese 12b, This star is 27% the size of our Sun and 60% of its temperature, What determines if a planet is habitable?, A hot but apparently habitable planet, The nearest Earth-sized world to date, The next step: analyzing its atmosphere, How Gliese 12b was discovered, Easier if they orbit red dwarfs, Still unknown if there is an atmosphere and water, Without water, it would resemble Venus and be uninhabitable, Breaking out the James Webb Space Telescope, Understanding Gliese 12b will help us better understand Earth

Besides shedding light on the exoplanet itself, Palethorpe hopes that this research will help us better understand our own planet. "“What this planet will teach us in particular is what happened for Earth to stay habitable but for Venus to not… It can tell us the habitability patheways that planets take as they develop,” she said.

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