
Rocky Planet Discovered Round 10 Billion-Yr-Outdated Star – Sky & Telescope

W. M. Keck Observatory / Adam Makarenko
Astronomers have found three planets orbiting a star about 10 billion years outdated — one among them rocky. The star, TOI 561 (which means it was the 561st object of curiosity from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite tv for pc), is in our galaxy’s older thick disk, which implies its planets have a pleasant view from on excessive of the Milky Method’s spiral.
The star has three planets, with diameters 1.5, 3, and a couple of instances Earth’s. The innermost one is rocky, with thrice Earth’s mass, however on a interval of 0.44 days, it’s something however Earth-like. Its dayside floor temperature is round 2500Ok (4,000°F). That’s nearly twice as scorching as Earth’s magma, and it’s certainly molten. What it truly seems like is unsure, as a result of as lead scientist Lauren Weiss (College of Hawaii, Manoa) notes, “It exceed temperatures the place geophysicists have made lava within the lab.”



Kaley Brauer / MIT
Astronomers have discovered planets round outdated stars earlier than, and even round chemically poor stars which have a paucity of heavy components. But the mere undeniable fact that this planet got here to be is of curiosity to astronomers. “We now have proof that the universe has been forming rocky planets for the final 10 billion years, greater than double the age of our personal photo voltaic system, and almost for the reason that origin of the universe itself,” Weiss says.
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