Earth-Mass “Iceball” Planet Found 13,000 Light-Years Away
The chilly, distant world is the smallest yet found via the “microlensing” planet-hunting technique
By Mike Wall, SPACE.com on April 28, 2017
This artist’s illustration depicts OGLE-2016-BLG-1195Lb, an Earth-mass planet in an Earth-like orbit around its star. This newfound planet is likely to be much colder than our own world, however, as its star is much smaller and dimmer than our sun. Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech
A newfound alien world is quite Earth-like in some ways, but you wouldn't want to live there.
The exoplanet, known as OGLE-2016-BLG-1195Lb, is about as massive as Earth and orbits its star at about the same distance Earth circles the sun. But OGLE-2016-BLG-1195Lb's parent star is tiny and dim, meaning the alien planet is likely far too cold to host life, its discoverers said.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-mass-ldquo-iceball-rdquo-planet-found-13-000-light-years-away/
