A group of amateur researchers found a possible planet similar to Earth in both size and orbit while reviewing old space telescope data. This discovery, called HD 137010 b, was featured in a recent study in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, according to Euronews.
The possible planet was found through Planet Hunters, a citizen science project where volunteers look for missed signals in data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope. In 2017, Kepler recorded a small, brief drop in the star’s brightness, hinting that a planet had passed in front of it. Even though only one event was seen, researchers could estimate the planet’s size and orbit by studying how long and how deep the dip was.
HD 137010 b is thought to be just a bit bigger than Earth and takes about 355 days to go around its star, so its year is almost as long as ours. The star it orbits is similar to the Sun but cooler, which means the planet is much colder than Earth. Scientists think its surface is likely covered in ice, but some climate models show that if the planet has a thick, carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere, liquid water might exist for a while.
Even though HD 137010 b is interesting to scientists, it is much too far away for us to visit. The planet is about 146 light-years from Earth, so with today’s technology, it would take thousands of years to travel there.
