Scientists At Mount Abu Observatory, Discover New Planet 600 Light Years Away

June 08, 2018

A team of scientists from the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad, have discovered a sub-Saturn or super-Neptune size planet, which is about 27 times the mass of Earth and six times the radius of Earth. The planet revolves around a Sun-like star, some 600 light years away from Earth.

The discovery was made by measuring the mass of the planet using the indigenously designed ‘PRL Advance Radial-velocity Abu-Sky Search’ (PARAS) spectrograph integrated with 1.2m telescope at PRL’s Gurushikar Observatory in Mount Abu. With this discovery, India has joined a select league of countries which has discovered planets around stars.

In a post on the website of the Indian Space Research Organisation, scientists said the name of the host star is EPIC 211945201 or K2-236 and the planet will be known as EPIC 211945201b or K2-236b. The planet was found to go around the star in about 19.5 days.

The surface temperature of the planet was found to be around 600 degrees Celsius, as it is very close to the host star. It is seven times nearer to its star, in comparison with Earth-Sun distance. This might make it uninhabitable

Source: Indiatimes