In a first, Indian scientists have discovered a new sub-Saturn planet orbiting a star similar to the sun.
Being an addition to the countries finding exoplanets, India has discovered a new planet named EPIC 211945201b or K2-236b. The planet is around 600 light-years away and is around 27 times bigger than Earth and around six times greater in radius. Scientists described the exoplanet as a sub-Saturn or a super-Neptune exoplanet.
Along with orbiting a Sun-like star, the EPIC also is seven times closer to its star than Earth is to the sun, which means that a year on that planet is roughly 19.5 Earth days. This fact also points out that the temperature on the new planet is likely to be around 600°C and will be too hot and dry to support life, as per Science Alert.
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Another finding about EPIC also suggests that the planet contains heavy elements including silicates, iron and ice, which makes up almost 60-70% of EPIC’s entire mass, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) said on its website.
EPIC’s discovery was made by a team of Indian scientists led by Abhijit Chakraborty from the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) in Ahmadabad. The discovered it by calculating the mass of the planet using the ‘PRL Advance Radial-velocity Abu-sky Search’ (PARAS) spectrograph. The spectrograph is first of its kind in India and is integrated with 1.2m telescope at PRL’s Gurushikhar Observatory in Mount Abu, India.
The scientists spent a year and a half to study the changes in the light coming from the planet’s host star (EPIC 211945201 or K2-236) and performed a sole confirmation of its mass.
“We report here strong evidence for a sub-Saturn around EPIC 211945201 and confirm its planetary nature,” the team reported in the American Astronomical Society's Astronomical Journal.
For the future, experts believe that this discovery might help scientists learn more about know these types of planets form so close to their host star. The discovery also marks a huge step for India with regard to space explorations, wrote Tech Times.