Gliese 12 b, potentially habitable planet the size of Venus

Astronomers have discovered a rocky planet like ours 40 light-years away from Earth. It is a little smaller than Earth, specifically the size of Venus, and its temperatures appear to be not much warmer than those of our world.

The discovery was made by an international team led by Shishir Dholakia, from the University of Southern Queensland in Australia.

The average temperature of this potentially habitable planet, called Gliese 12 b, is estimated to be 42 degrees Celsius. For reference, the average temperature on the Earth’s surface is 15 degrees Celsius.

Gliese 12 b orbits around its star at a distance much less than the distance between the Earth and the Sun. So much so that the planet takes only 12.8 days to make a complete revolution around its star, much less than the 365 days How long does it take for the Earth to make one complete revolution around the Sun.

However, the heat emitted by the star is much lower than that emitted by the Sun, so the final result may allow the existence of liquid water on the surface of Gliese 12 b.

For now, however, it is unknown whether Gliese 12 b has an atmosphere or not, and if it does, whether it contains enough greenhouse gas to have caused a catastrophic buildup of heat. If the latter has happened (as happened to Venus), temperatures on Gliese 12 b could be too high to support life.

In fact, Gliese 12 b receives 60 percent more energy from its star than Earth receives from the Sun and 85 percent more than Venus receives from the Sun. In fact, without the colossal greenhouse effect that ravages Venus, this It could also be habitable at many latitudes.

Artistic recreation of the planet Gliese 12 by its star. (Image: NASA JPL / Caltech / R. Hurt (Caltech-IPAC). CC BY)

The discovery of Gliese 12 and what is discovered about it in the future could also serve as a reference to make a more precise estimate of how many habitable planets there may be in our galaxy, since stars like Gliese 12 (red dwarfs, low temperature ) are tremendously common. If it is not an extreme rarity to have habitable planets around them, then the total number in our galaxy of such potentially life-bearing worlds could be spectacular.

The study on the new planet is titled “Potentially habitable ‘exo-Venus’ with Earth-like temperature discovered.” And it has been published in the academic journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. (Fountain: NCYT by Amazings)