Astronomers have discovered an exoplanet orbiting very close to the red dwarf star GJ 740, 36 light years from Earth.
According to a report published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, the new planet, named GJ 740 b, has a radius and mass respectively 1.4 and 3 times larger than those of Earth. It orbits the red dwarf star GJ 740 at such a close distance that it only takes 2.4 days to complete an orbit.
“It is the second shortest planet known around this type of star (red dwarf). The mass and orbital period suggest that it is a rocky planet, which can be confirmed.” by observations from NASA’s TESS Exoplanet Hunting Telescope in the future. “said astronomer Borja Toledo Padrón of the Institut Astruto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), lead author of the study.
GJ 740 b was detected by the spectrometer duo HARPS-N at the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo observatory and CARMENES at the Calar Alto observatory in Spain using the radial velocity technique. The technique relies on small variations in a star’s speed, usually caused by the gravity of an object orbiting it, to determine the existence of a planet.
The data also revealed that there could be another planet as massive as Saturn (nearly 100 times the mass of Earth) orbiting GJ 740 with an orbital period of up to nine years. However, more observations are needed for the team to confirm whether this radial velocity signal is caused by the planet or by the period of the star’s magnetic field.
The red dwarf GJ 740 is located in the constellation Serpent, 36 light years from Earth. It has a radius and mass only 0.56 and 0.58 times that of the Sun. This dwarf also orbits very close to another star with an orbital period of only 35.56 days.
