For example, VB 10b is located about as far from its star as Mercury is from the Sun. In fact, even though the star is more massive than the newfound planet, the two bodies would have a similar girth.īecause the star is so small, its planetary system would be a miniature, scaled-down version of our own. For years, VB 10 was the smallest star known - now it has a new title: the smallest star known to host a planet. It is what’s known as an M-dwarf and is only one-twelfth the mass of our Sun, just barely big enough to fuse atoms at its core and shine with starlight. The planet’s star, called VB 10, is tiny. In reality, the planet’s own internal heat would give it an earthlike temperature.

It is a gas giant, with a mass 6 times that of Jupiter and an orbit far enough away from its star to be labeled a “cold Jupiter” similar to our own. The newfound exoplanet, called VB 10b, is about 20 light-years away in the constellation Aquila. For example, a similar technique would be used by SIM Lite, a NASA concept for a space-based mission that is currently being explored. The finding confirms that astrometry could be a powerful planet-hunting technique for both ground- and space-based telescopes. And since more than seven out of 10 stars are small like this one, this could mean planets are more common than we thought.” It’s possible this star also has inner rocky planets. “We found a Jupiter-like planet at around the same relative place as our Jupiter, only around a much smaller star. “This method is optimal for finding solar system configurations like ours that might harbor other Earths,” said astronomer Steven Pravdo of JPL, lead author of a study about the results to be published in the Astrophysical Journal. After careful, intermittent observations of 30 stars, the team has identified a new exoplanet around one of them - the first ever to be discovered around a star using astrometry. But the method requires very precise measurements over long periods of time, and until now, has failed to turn up any exoplanets.Ī team of two astronomers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, has, for the past 12 years, been mounting an astrometry instrument to a telescope at the Palomar Observatory near San Diego. It involves measuring the precise motions of a star on the sky as an unseen planet tugs the star back and forth. A long-proposed tool for hunting planets has netted its first catch: a Jupiter-like planet orbiting one of the smallest stars known.Īstronomers first attempted the technique, called astrometry, 50 years ago to search for planets outside our solar system, called exoplanets.

Who first discoverd astrometry