A pink dwarf star referred to as Barnard’s star, which lies a mere six light-years from our photo voltaic system, has at the very least one — and probably a handful — of small rocky planets orbiting it, a brand new research suggests.

Barnard’s star, which is about one-sixth the mass of our solar, is the closest particular person star to our photo voltaic system. Solely the three stars within the Alpha Centauri system are nearer. Attributable to its proximity to Earth, Barnard’s star has lengthy been a goal of astronomers in search of exoplanets (SN: 12/1/73, SN: 12/7/23).

Now, after a number of false begins over the many years, researchers might lastly have hit pay filth. Jonay González Hernández, an astrophysicist on the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias in Tenerife, Spain, and his crew scrutinized greater than 150 observations made by a telescope in South America over the course of 4 years. Particularly, they appeared for tiny wobbles that might betray the presence of planets gravitationally yanking the star back and forth as they orbited.

The strongest wobble takes place each 3.15 days, the crew studies on-line October 1 in Astronomy & Astrophysics. It most likely is brought on by the near-circular orbit of a small rocky planet about thrice the mass of Mars, says González Hernández.

The researchers have executed a great job of excluding different doable sources of the wobble, reminiscent of rotation of the star or motion of the telescope throughout observations, says astronomer Jennifer Burt. These efforts, plus the excessive precision of the devices used to gather the crew’s knowledge, “will persuade scientists that this discovery is actual,” notes Burt, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. That, in flip, ought to encourage different groups to revisit the entire previous observations that they’ve product of Barnard’s star.

Certainly, the brand new research means that there are extra discoveries to be made. González Hernández and his colleagues have famous smaller oscillations which can be superimposed on the bigger wobble. Though they’re but to be confirmed, they seemingly characterize the presence of three smaller orbs circling the star at intervals of two.34 days, 4.12 days and 6.74 days. All 4 of those purported planets are too near Barnard’s star to help life as we all know it, the researchers recommend