New planetary treasure trove of knowledge – Daily News

     
     
     
 
 
     
 

     Published 2015-07-31 10:55
     
 

 
     
     
     

         

                 

Our nearest Earth-like planet outside our solar system have been found – and it can be a gold mine of scientific knowledge, reports NASA

                 
             

         
 
         
         

             
                 
                 
                 

                     

 

Our nearest Earth-like planet outside our solar system have been found – and it can be a gold mine of scientific knowledge, reports NASA

The planet has been named HD 219134b, and orbits a star in another solar system, less than 21 light years from us.

Although it is not possible to see the planet from Earth with the naked eye one can see the star it circulates around. It is in the constellation Cassiopeia in the northern sky – close to Polaris.

 
        
             

     
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The planet circles close to its star for there to be life on the planet, but it will still be able to become a very important source of knowledge – it’s impossible to study directly from the earth.

The planet is at an angle so it just goes to see when it passes in front of its sun. This makes it possible to read out both the size of the planet and provide clues about its composition.

DISCOVERY: Closest known rocky planet outside our solar system 21 light-yrs away http://t.co/wc5aH2AJJDNASAspitzer pic.twitter.com/MK5uPyd79G

– NASA (NASA) July 30, 2015

A planet like this are worth their weight in gold, writes NASA scientist Michael Werner. “This exoplanet will be one of the most studied in future decades, helping” forstätter he said.

As the planet does not belong to our solar system, it is called an exoplanet, and is one of the closest ever found. Most others are hundreds of light years away – this just 21. A light year, which is the distance that a beam of light travels in a vacuum in a year, equivalent to about 9.46 trillion kilometers.

It takes three days for the the planet orbits around its star and it has a mass 4.5 times larger than Earth and is the size to 1.6 times as large. It has a density of six grams per cubic centimeter, which means that NASA determined that there is a so-called rocky planets – like Earth.

Rocky planets like HD 219134b is larger than the Earth belongs to a growing group of planets called super-Earths. Earlier discoveries and studies show that super-Earths are common in our galaxy, but there is little research on them. But now there is a “close” copies that can be studied in more detail.