Closest Earth-sized planet found could be Venus’ twin

A person standing on the surface of GJ 1132b would weigh only about 20 percent more than they do on Earth.

The collection of rocky planets orbiting distant stars has just grown by one, and the latest discovery is the most intriguing one to date.

1132b is pretty similar to the Earth in a lot of respects. Then there’s similarities in mass; it weighs a little more than one and a half times the Earth’s mass. 5 to 1.5 times the size of Earth. If atmospheric gas gets too hot, the individual particles can gain enough speed to escape into space, but that’s not the case here.

Exo-Earth or exo-Venus?

The planet’s average temperature, they estimate, is about 500 degrees Fahrenheit, meaning that it nearly certainly can not sustain water, which is necessary for the existence of life.

“This planet is going to be a favorite target of astronomers for years to come”, adds lead author Zachory Berta-Thompson of the MA Institute of Technology (MIT).

For starters, it’s over three times closer than any other Earth-like rocky planet we’ve ever discovered. Such temperatures would boil off any water the planet may have once held, but still allows for the presence of an atmosphere. But they were also able to surmise other things which very much differentiate the planet from Earth. After observation, scientists were able to notice that about once every 1.6 days, the star dimmed.

A new Venus-Like planet has been discovered by astronomers in a solar system which is relatively close to earth. “I think that this planet’s atmosphere, when we are able to try to determine what it is made of, will be an interesting data point in understanding the diversity in atmospheric composition for Earth-sized planets”. The official term for a planet outside our solar system is exoplanet. So we think this planet probably still has something of a substantial atmosphere, in its current state.

1132b’s host star, Gliese 1132, is an M-dwarf star, which means it burns hydrogen but is less than 60 percent the size of the Sunday.

M-dwarf stars like GJ1132b’s are the most common class of stars in our universe. These rocky planets range from half to one-and-a-half times the size of the Earth. They note, however, that future, more detailed observations may turn a few up. If it does, it’s close enough (only 39 light-years away) that we could study that atmosphere in detail with the Hubble Space Telescope and future observatories like the Giant Magellan Telescope. “The discovery of this planet gives us the opportunity to switch our focus from imagining what is out there to testing our theories”.

These insights will help researchers understand how the planet’s atmosphere has evolved in such proximity to its star, with such strong radiation, stellar winds, and tidal forces from the star.

Astronomer David Charbonneau of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) in USA said, “We are searching for an earth like planet but along with we have found twin Venus instead of twin Earth”.