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Astronomers Confirm Four Sub-Earth Exoplanets Orbiting Barnard's Star

The discovery, enabled by advanced spectrograph technology, reveals one of the smallest planetary systems ever detected and provides new insights into planetary formation around red dwarf stars.

For a century, astronomers have been studying Barnard’s Star in the hope of finding planets around it. First discovered by E. E. Barnard at Yerkes Observatory in 1916, it is the nearest single star system to Earth. Now, using in part the Gemini North telescope, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, partly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and operated by NSF NOIRLab, astronomers have discovered four sub-Earth exoplanets orbiting the star. One of the planets is the least massive exoplanet ever discovered using the radial velocity technique, indicating a new benchmark for discovering smaller planets around nearby stars.
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Overview

  • Four rocky exoplanets, each smaller than Earth, have been confirmed orbiting Barnard's Star, located six light-years away in the Ophiuchus constellation.
  • The planets, with masses ranging from 19% to 34% of Earth's, orbit their host star in just 2 to 7 days, making them too hot to support life.
  • The detection was achieved using the MAROON-X instrument on the Gemini North Telescope and confirmed with ESPRESSO data from the Very Large Telescope in Chile.
  • These planets are among the smallest ever identified using the radial velocity technique, marking a significant breakthrough in exoplanet detection technology.
  • The findings refine understanding of planetary formation around red dwarfs, though the lack of transits limits further study using traditional observational methods.