New planet discovered by Indian scientists

CHENNAI:A planet, the size of super-Neptune or sub-Saturn, has been found 60 light years away from Earth. The discovery was made by a team of scientists from the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad.The mass of the exo planet is found to be about 27 times the mass of earth and its size is six times the size of earth.

Initially it was NASA’s K2 photometry which found the source to be a planetary candidate, but several measurements were needed to confirm its planetary status, as the photometry was not enough to do so.The discovery was made by measuring the mass of the planet using the indigenously designed PRL Advance Radial-velocity Abu-Sky Research Spectrograph, integrated with a 1.2m telescope at PRL’s Gurushikhar Observatory, in Mount Abu.

The scientists posted a post on their website, which stated that the planet revolved around a star called EPIC 211945201 or K2-236, due to which the planet is to be called as EPIC 211945201b or K2-236b. The planet is said to have a revolution period of 19.5 days.

The temperature of the planet was found to be around 600 degrees Celsius, which is because of its close proximity to its host star. This might make it uninhabitable.This discovery is important, as we may be able to understand the formation of a super-Neptune sized planet, so near to its host star.

Paras spectrograph made an independent measurement of the planet body and the diameter of the planet was found, by measuring the amount to light being blocked by the planet.PRL scientists who observed the target for about 1.5 years with the spectrograph to probe the nature of the planet and to calculate the materials the planet is made up of. 60%-70% of the planet’s weight is made up of ice, silicates and iron content.

This information was important, as it adds to the sparse catalogue of confirmed exoplanets.Only 23 other such systems exist are known to date, with such precise measurements of size and mass.With this discovery, India has joined a select league of countries which has discovered planets around stars.