LHS 1140b

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LHS 1140b (also spelled 'LHS 1140 b' ) is a rocky planet orbiting the red dwarf star LHS 1140 of type M in the constellation Whale (Latin: Cetus). The exoplanet orbits its central star at a relatively short distance, but due to the star's low luminosity, its orbit lies within the habitable zone that allows liquid water on the surface. The planet was discovered in transit in front of its star. Transits allow studying the planet's atmosphere. The mass of the planet LHS 1140b is (6.6 ± 1.8) times that of the earth and the diameter is about 1.4 times that of the earth. Its density is (2.3 ± 0.6) times that of the earth. The orbit of planet LHS 1140b is almost circular, with a radius of 0.09 AU . Its orbital period is 25 days.

The star LHS 1140 is about 39 light years away from the sun and has 15% of its mass. LHS 1140 is over 5 billion years old. The star's rotation time is 130 days. No flares have been observed so far .

The planet was discovered during the US MEarth Project . The radial velocities were measured by the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS). The researchers hope to be able to use next-generation telescopes, such as the James Webb Space Telescope and the Extremely Large Telescope , to spectrographically measure the atmospheres of Earth-like rock planets during transit and thus gain clues about their chemical compositions. The presence of certain molecules, such as oxygen, could suggest that biological processes are taking place on the surface of such a planet. The intrinsic rotation of LHS 1140b, which influences the temperature distribution on the surface, cannot yet be measured.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Habitable Exoplanets Catalog (English) - Planetary Habitability Laboratory ( PHL ); see also integrated image with potentially habitable planets (as of November 15, 2017)
  2. ↑ a b c Jason A. Dittmann, Jonathan M. Irwin, David Charbonneau, Xavier Bonfils, Nicola Astudillo-Defru, Raphaëlle D. Haywood, Zachory K. Berta-Thompson, Elisabeth R. Newton, Joseph E. Rodriguez, Jennifer G. Winters, Thiam-Guan Tan, Jose-Manuel Almenara, François Bouchy, Xavier Delfosse, Thierry Forveille, Christophe Lovis, Felipe Murgas, Francesco Pepe, Nuno C. Santos, Stephane Udry, Anaël Wünsche, Gilbert A. Esquerdo, David W. Latham & Courtney D. Dressing: A temperate rocky super-Earth transiting a nearby cool star . In: Nature . tape 544 , no. 7650 , 2017, p. 333 , doi : 10.1038 / nature22055 .
  3. ^ A b David Dickinson: Welcome to LHS 1140b: A Super-Earth in the Habitable Zone. In: Sky & Telescope. April 19, 2017. Retrieved April 19, 2017 .