Skip to main content

Astronomers spot an Earth-like planet orbiting a sun-like star

Astronomers have located a planet and star which are more similar to Earth and the sun than any pair found before. Located around 3000 light-years away, the star Kepler-160 and its orbiting planet KOI-456.04 are close enough together that there could even be liquid water on the planet’s surface.

The discovery was made by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany, investigating a star first observed by NASA’s Kepler space telescope. Research conducted in 2010 suggested that Kepler-160 could have two exoplanets orbiting around it. Now, the researchers believe that the star in fact hosts three or even four exoplanets, including the Earth-like KOI-456.04.

Exoplanets
An artist’s depiction of an Earth-like exoplanet. NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle

Most exoplanets discovered thus far are bigger than Earth, at around four times it size or approximately the same size as Neptune, and they typically orbit relatively close to their stars. But occasionally, astronomers spot a potentially rocky planet around the size of the Earth. These are often orbiting red dwarf stars, however, which only give off faint radiation, making the planet uninhabitable.

Recommended Videos

What makes KOI-456.04 special is not only the fact it is comparably sized to Earth, at less than twice its size, but also that its star is similar to our sun and that it orbits at an almost identical distance as Earth does. This means it could potentially be the right temperature to have liquid water on its surface.

Even if KOI-456.04 were to host liquid water though, don’t plan on moving there just yet. Other factors go into habitability, such as whether the planet has an atmosphere, which can have a profound effect on its surface temperatures. However, the potential for the planet is still impressive.

“The surface conditions on KOI-456.04 could be similar to those known on Earth, provided its atmosphere is not too massive and non-Earth-like,” the MPS wrote in a statement. “The amount of light received from its host star is about 93% of the sunlight received on Earth. If KOI-456.04 has a mostly inert atmosphere with a mild Earth-like greenhouse effect, then its surface temperature would be +5 degrees Celsius on average, which is about ten degrees lower than the Earth’s mean global temperature.”

Georgina Torbet
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
Astronomers spot strange exoplanet with a tail 350,000 miles long
Artist's concept depicts new research that has expanded our understanding of exoplanet WASP-69 b's "tail."

Astronomers using the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii have made a startling finding: a distant exoplanet with a tail hundreds of thousands of miles long. Planet WASP-69 b is located 164 light-years away, and as it orbit, it is followed by a stream of escaping gas that forms a tail -- making it look a little like a comet.

The planet is a type called a hot Jupiter, meaning it is a large gas giant that orbits very close to its star. So close, in fact, that a year there lasts less than four days and it has a blistering temperature of over 600 degrees Celsius.

Read more
Astronomers snap first up-close image of a star outside our galaxy
This image shows an artist’s reconstruction of the star WOH G64, the first star outside our galaxy to be imaged in close-up. It is located at a staggering distance of over 160 000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud. This artistic impression showcases its main features: an egg-shaped cocoon of dust surrounding the star and a ring or torus of dust. The existence and shape of the latter require more observations to be confirmed.

It's sometimes hard to grasp the scale of our universe, when even our own galaxy is so large and filled with billions of stars. But all of the stars that we have seen in detail are contained within the roughly 100,000 light-year span of our Milky Way galaxy. That is, until now, as astronomers recently observed a star outside of our galaxy up close for the first time.

The researchers looked at star WOH G64, located 160,000 light-years away, using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer. The image shows the main bulk of the star surrounded by a puffy cocoon of dust and gas.

Read more
There’s a tiny exoplanet orbiting our neighbor, known as Barnard’s star
Artist’s impression of a sub-Earth-mass planet orbiting Barnard’s star

In our local cosmic neighborhood, the nearest star is Proxima Centauri, which is part of the three-star Alpha Centauri system and known to host exoplanets of its own. But just a little further away is a single star on its own, known as Barnard's star. Recently, astronomers discovered that this star also hosts at least one exoplanet, and could host as many as four.

At just six light-years from Earth, Barnard's star is close by and has long been of interest to researchers searching for nearby exoplanets. But as a small, dim type of star called a red dwarf, no one has discovered an exoplanet here before -- though there were hints found in 2018 that such a planet might exist.

Read more