Interested in space? Take a look at this…
Astronomers have discovered 60 brand new planets which are orbiting stars near the Earth’s solar system.
The team is made up international scientists, this includes Dr Mikko Tuomi of the University of Hertfordshire, the team believe they have found another 54 planets which could bring the total to 114.
One planet discovered was a hot “super-earth”, it was located in the fourth nearest star system to the sun.
The planet has been named Gliese 411b, it demonstrates that “virtually all” the stars nearest to the sun have planets surrounding them. Some of these “could be like Earth”.
The results have come to light after 61,000 individual observations of 1,600 stars were taken over a 20-year period by US astronomers.
Dr Tuomi, led the analysis of the data, he said: “It is fascinating to think that when we look at the nearest stars, all of them appear to have planets orbiting them.”
“This is something astronomers were not convinced about, even as little as five years ago.”
“These new planets also help us better understand the formation processes of planetary systems and provide interesting targets for future efforts to image the planets directly.”
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