Rare Exoplanet Discovered Near Barnard’s Star

A newly discovered exoplanet, smaller than Earth, has been found orbiting Barnard’s Star, one of the closest stars to our Sun, located just six light years away, Dawn reported yesterday.

Observations conducted over five years using the Very Large Telescope in Chile revealed that this planet, named Barnard b, is situated 20 times closer to its red dwarf star than Mercury is to the Sun.

Despite its proximity to a star cooler than our Sun, Barnard b has a scorching surface temperature of 125 degrees Celsius (257 degrees Fahrenheit), making it inhospitable for liquid water. The planet completes an orbit in just three Earth days but is not located in the “Goldilocks zone,” where conditions might support extraterrestrial life.

Jonay Gonzalez Hernandez from Spain’s Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias emphasized that Barnard b is one of the lowest-mass exoplanets known.