This Earth-Sized Planet Was Found Orbiting a Tiny Star

Amaze Lab

Stars are known for being some of the largest objects in the cosmos, with some clocking in at upwards of 1,700 times the size of our Sun. However, they’re not all like that and recently astronomers detected an Earth-sized planet orbiting a star that is only around the size of Jupiter.

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00:00stars are known for being some of the largest objects in the cosmos with some clocking in at

00:09upwards of 1700 times the size of our sun however they're not all like that and recently astronomers

00:14detected an earth-sized planet orbiting a star that is only around the size of jupiter the star

00:20is named speculus 3 and it's an ultra cool dwarf star the system resides quite close to our own

00:25only around 55 light years away the planet orbiting it named speculus 3b is basically the size of our

00:31planet however it orbits its host star extremely closely in fact a year on speculus 3b lasts only

00:3817 hours and it has a synchronous orbit meaning one side is always facing the star and the other side

00:44is in a state of constant night luckily the star as its ultra cool dwarf moniker might suggest is

00:49much cooler than other stars as it's only around 10 the mass of the sun that means it burns at less

00:55than 50 the temperature and is a thousand times less bright however stars like this tend to be far

01:00more active than their larger brighter cousins astronomers observing it say that they witnessed

01:05at least one large flare and given its orbiting planets proximity that means it gets frequent

01:09heavy doses of cosmic radiation with experts saying this has likely led to the planet losing its

01:14atmosphere if it ever had one as it's exposed to around 16 times the amount of radiation we get here

01:20on earth

01:21on earth

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