Astronomers have found the alleged sister of the Earth near the star of Barnard

Space researchers leave no hope of discovering signs of extraterrestrial civilization on other planets, or at least living organisms and water. And now the discovery of another planet similar to Earth may possibly bring astronomers closer to this goal.

A planet claiming to be the bearer of life revolves around the star of Barnard. This star belongs to the category of red dwarfs and is located in the constellation Ophiuchus only at a distance of 5.96 light years from Earth. The mass of the Barnard star is estimated at about 17% of the mass of our Sun, and the radius does not exceed 1/5 of the radius of the Sun.

Especially for the search for earth-like planets near the stars closest to our solar system, the Pale Red Dot project was organized. Within its framework, European astronomers conducting observations from the La Silla Observatory in Chile, and found signs that the star Barnard has a satellite that has similar parameters to Earth. It is interesting that earlier astronomers already announced the discovery of satellites in the star of Barnard, but later this was recognized as a mistake and the star was deprived of satellites. In the case of the new discovery, scientists have enough evidence in favor of the fact that the satellite does exist.

Scientists have carefully studied archival materials relating to observations of the red dwarf, and compared them with the latest data that have been collected over the past two years. As a result of this, a planet was discovered revolving around the star of Barnard, or rather, not the planet itself, but many signs indicating its existence. The planet is removed from its luminary in much the same way as Venus is from the Sun, and makes one revolution around the star of Barnard in 233 days. But its mass exceeds the earth’s mass by 3.5 times, which allows us to classify it as a “super-earth”. Despite the fact that the new planet is closer to its star than the Earth, the temperature on its surface is about minus 170 degrees Celsius. The reason for such a big difference lies in the fact that the Barnard star itself is much inferior in size to our Sun and is not able to provide heat to its satellite. But if the super-earth has an atmosphere consisting of greenhouse gases, it can be much warmer on its surface, and therefore life can exist. Now scientists can only wait for new data that can be obtained through powerful telescopes and aircraft, which will be launched in the near future.