Two “super-Earths” have been revealed orbiting one of the brightest red dwarf stars in the sky.
About half as big as the sun, GJ 887 is just 11 light years away.
Red dwarfs like GJ 887 have low surface temperatures, which makes them less luminous and often hard to detect.
But stars like these are cooler than the sun, which means the habitable zone – the orbital band where temperatures are mild enough to allow liquid surface water – is much closer to GJ 887 in comparison with the Earth’s distance from the sun.
The new planets, called GJ 887b and GJ 887c, were found using a high-precision, planet-finding instrument on the European Southern Observatory’s 3.6-metre telescope at La Silla in Chile.
Both are believed to be super-Earths – planets which have a mass higher than Earth but substantially below those of local ice giants Uranus and Neptune.
The discovery was made by a team of astronomers, including researchers from Hertfordshire University, The Open University and Queen Mary University of London.
