Bhubaneswar: The astronomers have first picked up this planet’s signal way back in year 2022. In 2025, they discovered the possible “Super Earth”.
The discovery seems excited as astronomers believe this planet could have a habitable world.
The astronomers discovered this possible “super-Earth” orbiting a relatively close Sun-like star HD 20794.
KEY FACTS
The newly confirmed planet is the outermost of three detected so far around a star called HD 20794, just 20 light-years from Earth.
Its 647-day orbit is comparable to Mars in our solar system.
But this planet’s orbit is highly eccentric, stretched into an oval shape.
Due to oval orbit, it brings the planet close enough to the star to experience runaway heating for part of its year, then carries it far enough away to freeze any potential water on its surface.
The planet has been bouncing between these extremes roughly every 300 days – perhaps for billions of years.
WHY NAMED SUPER EARTH?
As per the International Science Team that discovered the planet, it could be super earth for the fact that in a good chunk of its year, it passes through waht they called "habitable zone" where formation of liquid water may be possible and if it happens so it could support habitations.
The discovery published in the Journal Astronomy and Astrophysics says, "the planet spends a good chunk of its year in the “habitable zone” around star HD 20794, when the orbital distance would allow liquid water to form on the surface under the right atmospheric conditions."
Moreover, the team claimed that the planet's surface is rocky like Earth.
ANOTHER REASON: The planet’s rocky surface is 6-times as massive as Earth.
OTHER DEATILS
The study says because of its eccentric orbit, it moves to a distance interior to the inner edge of the habitable zone when closest to the star, and outside the outer edge when farthest away.
At its closest, the planet’s distance from the star is comparable to Venus’s distance from the Sun; at its farthest point, it is nearly twice the distance from Earth to the Sun.
NASA PLANS
- The elliptically orbiting super-Earth appears to be an ideal target for future space-based telescopes designed to search for habitable worlds, seeking possible signs of life.
- High on the list is NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory, which will someday examine the atmospheres of Earth-sized planets around Sun-like stars.
- But one has to wait till year 2040, when it will be launched.
- As per NASA, the observatory would spread the light from such planets into a spectrum to determine which gases are present – including those that might reveal some form of life.
- The relative closeness of HD 20974, only 20 light-years away, its brightness, and its low level of surface activity – not to mention the third planet’s wild temperature swings – could make this system a prime candidate for scrutiny by NASA’s HWO.
ABOUT DISCOVERERS
The international science team that confirmed the eccentric super-Earth was led by researcher Nicola Nari of the Light Bridges S.L. and the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, and included Dr. Michael Cretignier of the University of Oxford, who first picked up the potential planet’s signal in 2022. Their paper, “Revisiting the Multi-planet system of the nearby star HD 20794” was published online by the journal, Astronomy and Astrophysics. .
