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A year is only eight hours on the nearest iron exoplanet

Exoplanet hunters have discovered a large small planet thought to be composed mostly of iron, which is partially melted on the detection side. A “year,” in one orbit around the parent star, takes less than eight hours.

Exoplanet GJ 367b appears in measurements by TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), a NASA satellite in space that looks for small, temporary dips in star brightness. This drop could be caused by a planet moving in front of its parent star, temporarily blocking vision. In this case, the star GJ 367, a red dwarf about 31 light-years from Earth, is in the constellation “Sailing” (roughly only visible from the Southern Hemisphere).

GJ 367b orbits the star in 7 hours 43 minutes, which is a relatively short “year”. It is small, relatively heavy, and very close to the star, which makes it look like an extreme version of Mercury, but shines with heat. Researchers from 49 scientific institutions published Last Friday’s discovery in scientific journals science.

The researchers confirmed the discovery of the TESS satellite and deepened it further with the HARPS spectrometer, part of the telescope at La Silla in Chile specially equipped to search for exoplanets. HARPS measures the tiny movement of a star under the influence of a planet’s gravity. From this, the mass of GJ 367b can be calculated: 55% of the mass of the Earth. It has a radius of 4,600 km (72 percent of the radius of the Earth), and it exhibits a corresponding density of about 8 tons per cubic meter, roughly the density of pure iron.

iron core

It reminds us of Mercury, the planet closest to the sun. Mercury also consists mostly of an iron core, without a mantle and a relatively light rocky crust. One possible explanation is that Mercury once included them, like other rocky planets in the making, but were swept away by collisions with other rocks in the solar system’s turbulent early years. Something similar is possible with GJ 367b, and this discovery could shed more light on the origins of planetary systems.

GJ 367b is much closer to its star than Mercury: one million kilometers. Mercury is 58 million km from the sun. This allows exoplanets to capture a lot of light and radiation. According to the researchers’ estimates, the surface temperature during the day varies between 1,300 and 1,500 degrees Celsius. This is just below the melting point of iron at 1.538 degrees. Therefore, it is possible to form a pool or lake of molten iron on the surface, and if there is an atmosphere, it is composed of evaporated minerals and minerals. By the way, there is no real question of day and night, because due to the movement of the tides, it is possible that GJ 367b always turns on the same side towards the star. Extraterrestrial life seems impossible.

smallest planet

in a to interview he met temper tantrums Lead author Christine Lamm of the Technical University of Berlin said she will explore this atmosphere more closely with the help of NASA’s James Webb Telescope, due to launch later this month.

GJ 367b is one of 4,576 confirmed exoplanets that have been mapped since the first planet outside our solar system was discovered in 1992. At first, it was a heavy exoplanet, because it was so easy to spot. But with increasingly sensitive technology and with the help of special telescopes and satellites, smaller planets have been added to the list, including now the small and massive planet Mercury.

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