One-in-a-million: ‘Super-Earth’ found near centre of galaxy

Another day, another super-Earth? Not so fast. This one really is special.

Calling it “incredibly rare,” New Zealand astronomers say that the planet “is one of only a handful that have been discovered with both size and orbit comparable to that of Earth,” according to a statement.

The research about the discovery was published recently in a study in the Astronomical

Journal.

How does this distant world and its star compare to our neighbourhood? According to the study, the super-Earth’s host star is about 10 per cent the mass of our sun, and the planet would have a mass somewhere between that of Earth and Neptune.

It would also orbit its star at a location between Venus and Earth.

However, as for life, or water, study authors say not to get our hopes up:

“Although it’s not too much bigger than Earth, and orbiting its star at a similar distance, this planet would be very cold because its star is smaller than the sun and emits much less light,” study coauthor Michael Abrow of New Zealand’s University of Canterbury said.

“Water could not exist in a liquid state and the likelihood of life would be very low,” he said. “Only a very few planets have been detected that may have suitable conditions for life.”

Study lead author Antonia HerreraMartin, also of the University of Canterbury, said the planet was discovered using a technique called “gravitational microlensing.”

“The combined gravity of the planet and its host star caused the light from a more distant background star to be magnified in a particular way,” he said. “We used telescopes distributed around the world to measure the light-bending effect.”