NASA Astronomers Discover The Planet Twice The Size Of The Earth



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If you think that scientists are not the most imaginative pile when it comes to naming things, then again, consider that Boffins in countries think they may have discovered "super Earth". Inspired.

However, there is a reason why it's so great: it's about twice as high as the normal Earth, and astronomers say it's in our "living area", it may even contain life. The second option for the name is K2-288Bb, which is not the most fascinating.

The extremely large planet is 226 light-years away, in the constellation called Taurus, and experts say this is probably a rocky or gas-rich planet similar to Neptune.

This new and improved Earth is located in a star-shaped K2-288, made up of a pair of smoke stars, about 5.1 billion kilometers away, about six times the distance between Saturn and the Sun – if it means something to you.

According to NASA, brighter than the two stars is about half the size of the Sun, while the other one is equal to a third of the Sun. This does not mean that for all of us it really means something.

NASA believes that they have found a planet that could contain life. Credit: NASA
NASA believes that they have found a planet that could contain life. Credit: NASA

The new planet, discovered by astronomers, circulates around this smaller star so that each cycle is every 313.3 days.

But this was not a team of experienced scientists who made this rather amazing discovery that two students, graduated from Adina Feinstein, from the University of Chicago, and Makennah Bristow, an undergraduate student at the University of North Carolina Asheville.

Two worked as a trainee with Joshua Schlieder, astrophysics at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Curious students were discovered by reading the data collected by the Kepler telescope and looking for evidence of transits, which is the regular darkening of the star when the planet moves along its face.

During a survey of data from the fourth set of observations from Kepler's K2 mission, three observed that there are two likely planetary transits.

However, they had to see the third transit before they could say that they discovered the planet for a definite but did not have it. Eventually they realized that they were not looking for all the information.

In May 2017, when he looked up new information published on Exoplanet Explorers – which allows the public to see Kepler's observations of K2 in order to try to find new transient planets – they finally notice this third missing transit.

Feinstein and her colleagues could not believe they had missed it and that the Astronomical Journal was accepted for publication.

Feinstein said: "That's how we missed it – and we needed the sharp eyes of civil scientists to make this extremely valuable find and direct us toward it.

"This is a very interesting discovery because of how it was found, its moderate orbit, and because it seems that planets of this size are relatively rare."

When can we go?

Advertising with image: PA / NASA

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