An Astrophysics student has co-led a discovery of a new Earth-sized planet — just 40 lights years away.
University of Southern Queensland PHD student Shishir Dholakia was analysing data from NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) when he identified exo-planet Gliese 12 b.
The planet was given the named “12b” as it orbits around Gliese 12, a cool red Dwarf planet in the Pisces constellation.
It’s also likely to be smaller than Earth, more like Venue and have temperatures of 42 degrees.
PHD student Shishir Dholakia who’s based at the Mount Kent Observatory said that the Gliese could be habitable.
“The planet could be at the right temperature for liquid water to pool on its surface, and that’s important because we tend to think liquid water is an essential ingredient for life as we know it,” Mr Dholakia said.
“And so, in this great search for life that we’re undertaking, we want to try and find planets that are potentially habitable, and this could be a good contender.”
The planet is only 40 light-years away, which makes it one of the closest potentially habitable planets to Earth – and means astronomers can point the largest space telescopes in the world at it to better understand it.
Mr Dholakia said Gliese 12 b could also potentially hold answers as to why the “twin planets” Earth and Venus have such wildly different atmospheres.
“Earth is this haven for life as we know it, but Venus is hot enough to melt lead on its surface. The difference between these two planets is largely because Venus has a very hostile atmosphere,” he said.
“We think that Gliese 12 b, which is right between Earth and Venus in terms of the amount of light that it gets from its Sun, could actually bridge the gap between Earth and Venus and help us understand why the two turned out to be so different.”
Dholakia co-led the team – with University of Edinburgh PhD student Larissa Palethorpe – who collaborated with NASA to confirm the new planet.
