Scientists discovered new freezing earth-like planet in binary star system

Space experts have run across another Earth-like planet circling a solitary star in a binary star system spotted 3,000 light-years from Earth. The disclosure is relied upon to help astronomers better see how Earth-like, or even possibly livable planets can structure, and how to discover them.

The new planet, named OGLE-2013-BLG-0341lbb, is double the mass of Earth, and it circles its host star at just about the same separation from which Earth circles the sun. Anyhow, the host star is a ton dimmer than the sun, which makes the new planet much colder than Earth.

“This greatly expands the potential locations to discover habitable planets in the future,” Scott Gaud, a professor at Ohio State University and the study’s co-author, said in a statement. “Half the stars in the galaxy are in binary systems. We had no idea if Earth-like planets in Earth-like orbits could even form in these systems.”

Scott Gaudi, a member of the research teams who teaches astronomy at The Ohio State University in Columbus says, “This greatly expands the potential locations to discover habitable planets in the future…Half the stars in the galaxy are in binary systems. We had no idea if Earth-like planets in Earth-like orbits could even form in these systems.”

This is the first time that researchers have found evidence that terrestrial planets can form in orbits similar to Earth’s, even in a binary star system where the stars are not very far apart. The planet briefly disrupted one of the images formed by the star it orbits as the system crossed in front of a much more distant star about 20,000 light-years away, writes Science Recorder.

Space experts have affirmed the presence of more than 1,700 planets past the earth’s planetary group in the previous 20 years. Of uncommon investment are exoplanets in livable, or Goldilocks, zones, the districts around stars sufficiently warm to have fluid water on their surfaces.