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Scientists Find 'Planet Vulcan' from Star Trek

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Hellkite

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Astronomers have discovered a new “super-Earth” orbiting a star known as HD 26965, which lies “just” 16 light-years away from Earth, according to a study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Super-Earths are planets outside the Solar System—or exoplanets—which have a mass higher than the Earth’s but significantly below those of the ice giants Uranus and Neptune. The new planet is the closest super-Earth ever found orbiting a Sun-like star.

The planet is around twice the size of Earth and orbits HD 26965 every 42 days. Furthermore, it lies in the optimal habitable zone—the region around a star within which a planet can support liquid water on its surface given sufficient atmospheric pressure.

This characteristic alongside the properties of the star, make the planet a promising candidate in the search for life outside our Solar System.

“The orange-tinted HD 26965 is only slightly cooler and slightly less massive than our Sun, is approximately the same age as our Sun, and has a 10.1-year magnetic cycle nearly identical to the Sun’s 11.6-year sunspot cycle,” author of the study, Matthew Muterspaugh, from Tennessee State University, said in a statement. “Therefore, HD 26965 may be an ideal host star for an advanced civilization.”

The planet was discovered using the 50-inch Dharma Endowment Foundation Telescope (DEFT) atop Mt. Lemmon in Southern Arizona, which was used to conduct precise brightness measurements of the star.

While the latest discovery is significant in its own right, it may carry extra importance for fans of science fiction. In the Star Trek fictional universe HD 26965 is known by an alternative name—40 Eridani A.

According to references in Star Trek publications, this star is said to host the famed planet Vulcan—the home of Mr. Spock, Science Officer on the starship Enterprise. And in 1991, three astronomers confirmed in a letter to Sky & Telescope magazine that Vulcan would most likely orbit 40 Eridani A. Thus, scientists may have just discovered the “real” Vulcan.

“Spock served on the starship Enterprise, whose mission was to seek out strange new worlds, a mission shared by the Dharma Planet Survey,” another author of the study, Gregory Henry from Tennessee State, said in a statement.

The Dharma Planet Survey is designed to detect and characterize low-mass planets, around nearby Sun-like stars. The ultimate goal is to find potentially habitable, super-Earths which could provide high-priority targets for future space imaging missions. The latest find is the first super-Earth to be detected by the survey.

Written by Aristos Georgiou
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