HEY, THERE'S A SUPER EARTH PLANET OUT THERE NAMED AFTER ME!

London astronomers have confirmed that they managed to find a planet that is very possible to have / support life. Uniquely the distance of the planet when compared with other exoplanets is relatively close to Earth, which is approximately 13 light years. The planet, named Kapteyn B, orbits a dwarf star called Kapteyn Star (Kapteyn Star). Planet Kapteyn b is very strange, because it is very old at 11.5 billion years which means 2.5 times older than the age of the Earth and only a difference of 2 billion years from the age of the universe. From the age of a planet that is so old, it is very possible that there is already life there. "That makes you wonder what kind of life can evolve on a planet for a long time," said the study's author, Guillem Anglada-Escude of Queen Mary University in London. In addition to the age of the planet Kapteyn b which is very old, the planet is also dubbed as Super Earth because its mass is about 5 times larger than the mass of the Earth.

Anglada-Escude also stated that besides the planet Kapteyn b, the planet Kapteyn was also found c. Planet Kapteyn c is a bit different because it doesn't seem to support life because the temperature is too cold. For once around the star, the planet Kapteyn b takes 48 days, while Kapteyn c 121 days.

Both planets were detected by the HARPS spectrometer at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. Then the observation was continued using two other spectrometers namely the HIRES spectrometer at Keck Observatory, Hawaii and PFS at the Magellan II telescope, Chile. Initially astronomers recorded a small vibration from the gravitational pounding induced by Kapteyn star motion. This beat causes the star's light shift. From there astronomers know that there are planets orbiting the star. Kapteyn star itself is a dwarf star that is one third of our Sun and is located in the south of the Pictor constellation.

source: http://blog-astronomi.blogspot.com/