{"id":9883,"date":"2021-03-05T14:10:13","date_gmt":"2021-03-05T14:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/?p=9883"},"modified":"2021-03-05T14:10:13","modified_gmt":"2021-03-05T14:10:13","slug":"rocky-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/rocky-planet\/9883\/","title":{"rendered":"Best chance of studying rocky planet atmospheres outside our solar system"},"content":{"rendered":"
Gliese 486b is a super-Earth, which is a rocky planet bigger than Earth but smaller than ice giants like Neptune and Uranus. It orbits a red dwarf star around 26 light-years away, making it a close neighbour to our solar system.<\/p>\n
With a surface temperature of 430\u00b0 Celsius, Gliese 486b is too hot to support human life. But studying its atmosphere could help us learn whether similar planets might be habitable for humans \u2013 or if they are likely to hold other signs of life.<\/p>\n
Dr Ben Montet, an astronomer and Scientia Lecturer at UNSW Science and co-author of the study, said: “This is the kind of planet we’ve been dreaming about for decades. We’ve known for a long time that rocky super-Earths must exist around the nearby stars, but we haven’t had the technology to search for them until recently. This finding has the potential to transform our understanding of planetary atmospheres.”<\/p>\n
Super-Earths are not rare, but Gliese 486b has two unusual characteristics: firstly, its heat ‘puffs up’ the atmosphere, helping astronomers take atmospheric measurements; and secondly, it’s a transiting planet<\/a>, which means it crosses over its star from Earth’s perspective – making it possible for scientists to conduct in-depth analysis of its atmosphere.<\/p>\nThe CARMENES project<\/h3>\n