L 98-59 F: Confirmed the fifth potentially habitable planet

Astronomers reveal diversified cast of rocky worlds around a small star, which is 35 light years away.

An astronomers conducted the study more detailed to the date of the planetary system L 98-59confirming the presence of a fifth planet located in the habitable zone of your star – a region where it may exist water No liquid state.

It offers new clues about the diversity and composition of planets that orbiting red dwarfs.

Located only 35 light years from Earth, the red dwarf L 98-59 was already known for welcoming three exoplanets, discovered in 2019 through the NASA Tesscope Telescope. One planet’s room It was later detected with the aid of the Espresso spectrographer at the Southern European Observatory (ESO).

Now, through extensive re -analysis of observations collected by spatial and terrestrial telescopes, researchers have identified a fifth potentially habitable planet – L 98-59 f – that does not move the star, but whose presence was revealed by subtle variations in the Movement of the Star.

The study determined the sizes and masses of the planets with unprecedented accuracy.

“These new results offer the fullest That we ever had from the fascinating L 98-59 system, Charles Cadieux, the main author of the study.

The inner planets have diverse and intriguing characteristics: L 98-59 B is a rara “sub-Terra”smaller and less massive than our planet; The following two may be subject to intense volcanic activity Caused by tidal heating, like Jupiter’s Moon Io; And one of them seems to be a “Water World” low density, without equivalent in the solar system.

The discovery of L 98-59 F is particularly exciting. Despite not transiting the star, the planet receives a quantity of star energy similar to that the earth receives from the sunbeing fully in the seasoned zone.

Its detection was based on advanced techniques of Radial Speed Measurementwith data from Harps and Espresso spectrographers, combined with new methods developed by the Irex team to eliminate star noise.

“This system offers us a single laboratory ”, said René Doyon, co -author of the study. “It helps us to answer fundamental questions about planet formation, their composition and the retention of atmospheres around small mass stars.”

Instead of resorting to new times of observation with telescopes, researchers reprocessed file data with innovative analytical tools, significantly improving the accuracy of measurements and paving the way for further exploitation of potentially habitable worlds near Earth.