rocky planet neighbor tagged posts

This artist’s impression shows the temperate planet Ross 128 b, with its red dwarf parent star in the background. Credit: courtesy of ESO/M. Kornmesser

Detailed chemical abundances of the Ross 128 help us understand its exoplanet Ross 128 b. Last autumn, the world was excited by the discovery of an exoplanet called Ross 128 b, which is just 11 light years away from Earth. New work from a team led by Diogo Souto of Brazil’s Observatório Nacional and including Carnegie’s Johanna Teske has for the first time determined detailed chemical abundances of the planet’s host star, Ross 128.

Understanding which elements are present in a star in what abundances can help researchers estimate the makeup of the exoplanets that orbit them, which can help predict how similar the planets are to the Earth...