Astronomers Discover An Earth-Like Planet Orbiting Closest Star To Our Sun

A group of astronomers have discovered an exoplanet orbiting the closest single star to Earth’s Sun. The earth-like planet has at least half the mass of Venus, and a year lasts only a little over three Earth days.

Whether it be an alien planet orbiting the K-type star Epsilon Indi A, which is around the same age as Earth’s Sun, or a promising super-Earth that resembles a giant eyeball, astronomers and scientists are always on the lookout for another planet that might host life. It was during a search for a hypothesized earth-like planet that a group astronomers stumbled upon another exoplanet, known as Barnard b.

The discovery was made using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), and is the subject of a research paper published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. Jonay Gonzalez Hernandez, lead author of the paper, noted that the ...