The nearest single star to the Solar System has just yielded up a rare and wonderful treasure.
Around a red dwarf known as Barnard’s star, which lies just 5.96 light-years away, astronomers have found evidence of an exoplanet.
And not just any exoplanet. This fascinating world, known as Barnard b, is tiny, clocking in with a minimum mass of 37 percent of the mass of Earth. That’s a little shy of half a [Venus](https://sciencealert.com/venus), and about 2.5 Marses.
The reason it’s so marvelous is that tiny exoplanets are really, really hard to find. Although Barnard b is not habitable to life as we know it, its discovery is leading us closer to the identification of Earth-sized worlds that may be scattered elsewhere throughout the galaxy.
If you are wondering why the star is specified as “Nearest single star”, it’s because the star in question—Barnard’s Star—is the fourth closest star to Earth. And the closest three stars are all parts of the triple star system Alpha Centauri.
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Summary of the article in ScienceAlert:
The nearest single star to the Solar System has just yielded up a rare and wonderful treasure.
Around a red dwarf known as Barnard’s star, which lies just 5.96 light-years away, astronomers have found evidence of an exoplanet.
And not just any exoplanet. This fascinating world, known as Barnard b, is tiny, clocking in with a minimum mass of 37 percent of the mass of Earth. That’s a little shy of half a [Venus](https://sciencealert.com/venus), and about 2.5 Marses.
The reason it’s so marvelous is that tiny exoplanets are really, really hard to find. Although Barnard b is not habitable to life as we know it, its discovery is leading us closer to the identification of Earth-sized worlds that may be scattered elsewhere throughout the galaxy.
Read the [peer-reviewed paper](https://www.aanda.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202451311) and [full article.](https://www.sciencealert.com/tiny-earth-like-world-discovered-orbiting-nearest-single-star-to-earth?utm_source=reddit_post)
If you are wondering why the star is specified as “Nearest single star”, it’s because the star in question—Barnard’s Star—is the fourth closest star to Earth. And the closest three stars are all parts of the triple star system Alpha Centauri.
I wonder if a Little Prince lives there
Earth-SIZE, not Earth-LIKE. Do better.
A mega-Mercury, I guess.