An international scientific team led by researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has discovered the presence of two planets with Earth-like masses orbiting the star GJ 1002, a red dwarf not far from the solar system . Both planets are within the star’s habitable zone.
“Nature seems determined to show us that Earth-like planets are very common. With these two, we now know of 7 of them in planetary systems fairly close to the Sun,” says IAC researcher Alejandro Suárez Mascareño, who is the first author of the study. accepted for publication in Astronomy and astrophysics.
The newly discovered planets orbit the star GJ 1002, which lies less than 16 light-years from the solar system. Both have masses similar to that of Earth, and they are within the habitability zone of their star. GJ 1002b, the interior of the two, takes just over 10 days to orbit the star, while GJ 1002c needs just over 21 days. “GJ 1002 is a red dwarf star, barely one-eighth the mass of the Sun. It is a fairly cold and faint star. This means that its habitable zone is very close to the star,” explains Vera María Passegger, co-author of the article and researcher at the IAC.
The star’s proximity to our solar system means that both planets, in particular GJ 1002c, are excellent candidates for characterizing their atmospheres from either their reflected light or their thermal emission. “The future ANDES spectrograph for ESO’s ELT telescope, in which the IAC participates, might study the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere of GJ 1002c”, notes Jonay I. González Hernández, researcher at the IAC and co- author of the article. In addition, the two planets fulfill the characteristics required to be objectives of the future LIFE mission, currently in the study phase.
The discovery was made during a collaboration between the consortia of the two instruments ESPRESSO and CARMENES. GJ 1002 was observed by CARMENES between 2017 and 2019, and by ESPRESSO between 2019 and 2021. “Due to its low temperature, the visible light of GJ 1002 is too weak to measure its speed variations with the majority of spectrographs”, explains Ignasi Ribas. , researcher at the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC) and director of the Institute for Space Studies of Catalonia (IECC). CARMENES has a sensitivity over a wide range of near-infrared wavelengths superior to that of other spectrographs intended to detect variations in the speed of stars, which has enabled it to study GJ 1002, from the 3.5 m telescope from the Calar Alto observatory.
The combination of ESPRESSO and the light-gathering power of ESO’s VLT 8m telescopes enabled measurements to be made with an accuracy of just 30cm/sec, unachievable with any other instrument in the world. “Either of the two groups would have had a lot of difficulty if they had undertaken this work independently. Together we were able to go much further than we might have done by acting independently,” says Suárez Mascareño.
Source of the story:
Materials provided by Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC). Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
