Indian scientists discover planet 600 light years away
A team of scientists from the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad, discovered a sub-Saturn or super-Neptune size exoplanet,
it is about 27 times the mass of Earth and six times the radius of Earth.
The planet revolves around a Sun-like star, some 600 light years away from Earth.
The discovery was made by measuring the mass of the planet using the indigenously designed ‘PRL Advance Radial-velocity Abu-Sky Search’ (PARAS) spectrograph integrated with 1.2m telescope at PRL’s Gurushikar Observatory in Mount Abu.
With this discovery, India has joined a select league of countries which has discovered planets around stars.
The planet was found to go around the star in about 19.5 days.
The surface temperature of the planet was found to be around 600 degrees Celsius, as it is very close to the host star. It is seven times nearer to its star, in comparison with Earth-Sun distance. This might make it uninhabitable
The discovery is of importance for understanding the formation mechanism of such super-Neptune or sub-Saturn kind of planets, that are too close to the host star, according to scientists.
Paras spectrograph made an independent measurement of the mass of the planet body, as it was necessary for discovery after data from Nasa’s K2 (Kepler2) photometry could not confirm the planetary nature of the system.
A team of scientists from the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad, discovered a sub-Saturn or super-Neptune size exoplanet,
it is about 27 times the mass of Earth and six times the radius of Earth.
The planet revolves around a Sun-like star, some 600 light years away from Earth.
The discovery was made by measuring the mass of the planet using the indigenously designed ‘PRL Advance Radial-velocity Abu-Sky Search’ (PARAS) spectrograph integrated with 1.2m telescope at PRL’s Gurushikar Observatory in Mount Abu.
With this discovery, India has joined a select league of countries which has discovered planets around stars.
The planet was found to go around the star in about 19.5 days.
The surface temperature of the planet was found to be around 600 degrees Celsius, as it is very close to the host star. It is seven times nearer to its star, in comparison with Earth-Sun distance. This might make it uninhabitable
The discovery is of importance for understanding the formation mechanism of such super-Neptune or sub-Saturn kind of planets, that are too close to the host star, according to scientists.
Paras spectrograph made an independent measurement of the mass of the planet body, as it was necessary for discovery after data from Nasa’s K2 (Kepler2) photometry could not confirm the planetary nature of the system.
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