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Astronomers discover a new potentially habitable planet, but it could be -70°C

2026-01-30 22:19:27Lifestyle SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX

Astronomers discover a new potentially habitable planet, but it could be

Astronomers have discovered a new, potentially habitable planet about 146 light-years away, with a size similar to Earth and conditions resembling Mars.

The planet, called HD 137010 b, orbits a Sun-like star and is estimated to be 6% larger than Earth.

An international team of scientists from Australia, the UK, the US and Denmark identified the planet using data collected in 2017 by NASA's Kepler space telescope during its extended mission, known as K2.

Dr. Chelsea Huang, a researcher at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) in Australia, said the planet's orbit is similar to Earth's, around 355 days. Scientists believe the planet has a "about 50% chance of being in the habitable zone" of its surrounding star.

"What makes this Earth-sized planet particularly exciting is that its star is only about 150 light-years away from our solar system," said Huang, one of the study's co-authors.

The next closest star with a potentially habitable planet around a Sun-like star, Kepler-186f, is four times farther away and 20 times fainter. HD 137010 was discovered when it briefly passed in front of its star, causing a small dimming of its light.

This weak signal was first identified by a team of citizen scientists, including the study's lead author, Dr. Alexander Venner, when he was still a high school student.

"I contributed to this citizen science project, called Planet Hunters, when I was in high school, and it was a big part of how I got into scientific research ," said Venner, who later completed his doctorate at USQ.

"It was an incredible experience to return to this project and discover such an important discovery."

The team's first reaction to the discovery was: " This can't be true ," Huang said. "But we double-checked everything and triple-checked it ... and it's a typical example of a transit of a planet."

The brightness and proximity of the star the planet orbits make it " accessible for observation by the next generation of telescopes," Huang added. "I'm sure it will be the first target to study when the technology is ready."

The star around which HD 137010 b orbits is cooler and dimmer than our Sun, meaning the planet's surface temperature could be more similar to Mars and potentially below -70°C. Dr. Sara Webb, an astrophysicist at Swinburne University, who was not part of the study, said the discovery was "very exciting", but more data was needed to classify the candidate planet as a confirmed exoplanet.

"Only one transit has been detected, and usually in planetary science the gold standard of three transits is required."

The fact that the planet resembles Earth is an exciting possibility, but Webb added that it could also be “something called a super-snow. Basically, a big icy world that potentially has a lot of water, but most of it is frozen.”

Although the planet " is very close compared to our galaxy ," Webb said that " if we were to try to get there, it would take us tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of years traveling at the current speeds we can."


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