This super-Earth is a rocky world, on which a year is equal to just 11 Earth days.
The short orbit is down to the red dwarfs being a lot smaller than the Sun that centres our solar system. But the smaller sizes also make their gravitational fields less expansive than the Sun's.
Therefore, Ross 508b revolves around its red dwarf at a distance of just 5 million km. Mercury, in comparison, is about 60 million km from the Sun.
The short distance between this super-Earth & its red dwarf begs the question: how could it possibly be habitable?
Well, the Ross 508b's orbit is elliptical, meaning it isn't always as close to the star & pretty much dips in and out of the habitable zone.
A planet like this may be able to retain water on its surface. Whether or not water or life actually thrive there is still up for debate.
Red dwarfs are cooler than other types of stars and emit less visible light, which makes studying them challenging.
What makes this find more special is that it's the 1st exoplanet found by the Subaru Strategic Program using the infrared spectrograph IRD on the #SubaruTelescope.
The team at Astrobiology Center in #Japan developed IRD specifically to search for red dwarf-orbiting exoplanets like Ross 508b.
It relies on a planet-hunting technique that looks for minute deviations in the velocity of a star to infer a planet orbiting it.
It wouldn't be a stretch to assume that the #SubaruTelescope could bestow us with even better candidates for habitable planets around red dwarfs.
This study has opened doors for future observations to confirm the possibility of life around low-mass stars.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
While searching for life in the Gulf of Mexico, researchers pulled out a new bizarre-looking species of isopod, whose head resembles the Darth Vader from Star Wars!
This new-found crustacean, named Bathonymus yucatanensis, has 14 legs and is around 26 cm long — approximately 25 times larger than its closest relative, the common woodlouse.
While these blonde creatures seem pretty scary, the "Vanilla Vaders" are, in fact, harmless to humans.
Their huge size is only due to deep-sea gigantism — a phenomenon wherein ocean dwellers grow bigger than their terrestrial relatives due to lack of sunlight.
#Japan is making grand plans of creating interplanetary #trains and champagne flute-like glass habitats in its bid to send and host humans on the #Moon and #Mars!
An interplanetary transportation system dubbed the 'Hexatrack', which maintains a gravity of 1G during long-distance travel to mitigate the effects of prolonged exposure to low gravity, has been proposed by #Japanese researchers.
The #trains will also possess 'Hexacapsules', which are essentially hexagon-shaped capsules with a moving device in the middle.
In 2012, the almost-complete skeleton of a new kind of #dinosaur was found in the northern Patagonia region of #Argentina.
The dinosaur has been christened #Meraxes gigas. The generic epithet is an ode to a dragon in the #GameOfThrones series.
Standing at the height of 11 m (36 ft) and weighing roughly 4000 kgs, the #dinosaur sported several crests, bumps and horns on its skull, which lent it a menacing appearance.
But the highlight of the findings is that the dinosaur had teeny-tiny arms, just like the #Trex!
Dr Jose, along with an international research team from the US, UK and Australia, will be examining the Galactic Centre Cloud (GCC) — the central molecular zone of our Milky Way — in April 2023.
They have been allotted 27.3 hours over the access period of 12 months.
In 2014, several skeletons were excavated from a well in Ajnala, Punjab.
While they were initially thought to be people who may have been killed during the Partition of India-Pakistan, DNA sequences matched with people from UP, Bihar & West Bengal.
📸: Via Times of India
The collaborative study by @ccmb_csir, @OfficialPU, @BSIPLucknow and BHU, published on April 28, used 50 samples for DNA analysis and 85 specimens for isotope analysis.
DNA analysis helps understand the ancestry of people and isotope analysis sheds light on food habits.