Six exoplanets found orbiting a nearby bright star

Subject: Science and Tech

Section: Space technology

Context:

Six exoplanets orbiting around a nearby bright star (HD 110067) in the Coma Berenices constellation has been discovered.

About HD110067

HD 110067 is a star with 6 known sub-Neptune exoplanets.
The star is located in the constellation Coma Berenices, which is near Virgo in the northern sky. It is about 100 light-years away from Earth.
The 6 planets in HD 110067 orbit the star in a rhythmic pattern. The planets form a “resonant chain” in successive pairs of 3:2, 3:2, 3:2, 4:3, and 4:3.
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) detected the star’s brightness dipping in 2020. This indicated that planets were passing in front of the star.

What are Exoplanets?

Exoplanets are planets that orbit other stars and are beyond our solar system. The first confirmation of detection of exoplanets occurred in 1992.
According to NASA, to date, more than 5,000 exoplanets have been discovered.
Scientists believe that there are more planets than stars as each star have at least one planet orbiting it.
Exoplanets come in a host of different sizes. They can be gas giants bigger than Jupiter or as small and rocky as Earth. They are also known to have different kinds of temperatures — boiling hot to freezing cold.

Discovery:

Exoplanets are very hard to see directly with telescopes. They are hidden by the bright glare of the stars they orbit.
So, astronomers use other ways to detect and study exoplanets such as looking at the effects these planets have on the stars they orbit.
Scientists rely on indirect methods, such as the transit method, which is measuring the dimming of a star that happens to have a planet pass in front of it.
Other detection methods include gravitational microlensing– Light from a distant star is bent and focused by gravity as a planet passes between the star and Earth. The same method could hypothetically use our Sun to see exoplanets.

Significance:

Studying exoplanets not only broadens our understanding of other solar systems but also helps us piece together information about our own planetary system and origin.
However, the most compelling reason to learn about them is to find the answer to one of the most profound and thought-provoking questions of humankind — are we alone in this universe?
Another important element of the study is finding out the distance between an exoplanet and its host star.
This helps scientists determine if a discovered world is habitable or not. If an exoplanet is too close to the star, it might be too hot to sustain liquid water. If it’s too far, it might only have frozen water.
When a planet is at a distance that enables it to have liquid water, it is said to be in the “Goldilocks zone” or the habitable zone.

A massive exoplanet closely orbits a very low-mass star

The discovery of a Neptune-mass exoplanet orbiting the very lowmass M dwarf star LHS 3154 challenges theoretical models of planet formation.
The planet, which has a mass at least 13 times that of Earth, tightly orbits a star nine times less massive than the Sun, demonstrating that small stars can sometimes host larger planets than was previously thought.
Although massive planet candidates have been detected around a few very lowmass dwarfs.