Finding HD 137010 b A brief 10-hour dip in the star\u2019s light first revealed the presence of the world now called HD 137010 b.<\/p>\n Analyzing that signal, Alexander Venner of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA<\/a>) showed that the dimming matches the passage of a planet only slightly larger than Earth.<\/p>\n The faint event had gone unnoticed for years because automated searches expected repeating signals, leaving this lone crossing hidden in plain sight.<\/p>\n With only a single transit recorded so far, the system now stands as a compelling candidate that still requires another observation to confirm the planet<\/a>\u2019s orbit.<\/p>\n Why this star matters<\/p>\n Around this star, a K-dwarf that is smaller and cooler than the Sun, an Earth-like orbit would be much colder.<\/p>\n Even at roughly Earth\u2019s orbital distance, the candidate receives only about 29 percent of Earth\u2019s sunlight, which pulls its climate estimate downward.<\/p>\n Models placed the world near the habitable zone, the range where liquid water can persist with the right air.<\/p>\n Those same calculations gave it a 40 percent chance of sitting inside the conservative zone, leaving cold conditions as the likelier bet.<\/p>\n HD 137010 b may be too cold<\/p>\n A planet<\/a> on that edge could be frozen solid, especially if bright surface ice reflected away much of the starlight.<\/p>\n Yet a thicker carbon-dioxide atmosphere could trap heat and keep surface water liquid despite the weak stellar energy.<\/p>\n That tension makes HD 137010 b interesting for a reason beyond size, because climate may hinge on atmospheric makeup rather than orbit alone.<\/p>\n Right now, the data cannot determine which outcome is correct, and that uncertainty keeps the interpretation scientifically cautious.<\/p>\n Scientists rule out false signals<\/p>\n The team had to show the signal was not a trick of hardware or another star.<\/p>\n Archival images, new high-resolution observations, old measurements of the star\u2019s motion, and precision star-tracking all cut away likely impostors.<\/p>\n Those checks mattered because a single dip can come from eclipsing stars, background blends, or detector noise instead of planets.<\/p>\n After ruling out other possibilities, a planet passing in front of the star remained the simplest explanation, though one more observation is still needed to confirm it.<\/p>\n Significance of the signal<\/p>\n Volunteers with the Planet Hunters first flagged the faint signal, offering an early hint that a small planet might be hiding in the data from Kepler Space Telescope.<\/p>\n The brief dip had sat unnoticed for years before astronomers revisited the archive and recognized its significance.<\/p>\n A transit, the slight dimming that occurs when a planet crosses its star, becomes easy for automated searches only when the event repeats.<\/p>\n \u201cThe best way to detect it was to actually just look,\u201d said Venner, emphasizing the value of careful human inspection.<\/p>\n Why HD 137010 b stands out<\/p>\n Few comparable worlds are known, and most small planets in temperate orbits circle faint stars that are hard to examine.<\/p>\n The best-known early milestone, Kepler-186f<\/a>, proved Earth-size planets can exist in the right zone, but its star is far dimmer.<\/p>\n Many other promising small worlds orbit M-dwarfs, small dim stars whose close-in habitable zones can expose nearby atmospheres to radiation.<\/p>\n HD 137010 b stood out because it combined small size, a long orbit, and a host star bright enough for serious follow-up.<\/p>\n Host star brightness matters<\/p>\n Because the host star is bright, future instruments can gather cleaner light and ask sharper questions about the system.<\/p>\n That advantage matters long before anyone can search for life, since even basic checks need enough photons to measure tiny changes.<\/p>\n ESA\u2019s PLATO mission<\/a>, a planned space telescope designed to search for Earth-size planets around Sun-like stars, is being built to watch these stars for years and hunt terrestrial planets in wider orbits.<\/p>\n \u201cThe advantage of this star is that we already know there\u2019s a planet with Earth-like properties,\u201d said Venner.<\/p>\n Planet still needs confirmation<\/p>\n Confirmation will probably come the old-fashioned way, by catching the planet pass in front of its star again.<\/p>\n That job is difficult because a yearlong orbit gives astronomers few chances, and each predicted window still carries uncertainty.<\/p>\n Another approach, radial velocity \u2013 the tiny wobble a planet induces in its star \u2013 looked even harder to measure in this system.<\/p>\n If the planet is roughly Earth-mass, its pull on the star should be far below today\u2019s easiest detections.<\/p>\n Next steps for HD 137010 b<\/p>\n Separate measurements hinted that something else may tug on the star, perhaps a bigger outer planet or brown dwarf.<\/p>\n That possible companion did not explain away the transit, but it may shape how the system formed and evolved.<\/p>\n A large outer body can dominate a system\u2019s motions and influence where smaller rocky worlds end up.<\/p>\n More monitoring should tell astronomers whether HD 137010 b lives in a quiet system or a much busier one.<\/p>\n HD 137010 b occupies a rare sweet spot \u2013 Earth-size, a yearlong orbit, nearby, and unusually accessible for future study.<\/p>\n Whether it proves icy or merely chilly, the candidate already gives planet hunters a concrete target instead of a blind search.<\/p>\n The study is published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters<\/a>.<\/p>\n Image Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech; Keith Miller\/Caltech\/IPAC<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.<\/p>\n Check us out on EarthSnap<\/a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls<\/a> and Earth.com.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Astronomers have discovered an Earth-size planet candidate circling a nearby star on a 355-day orbit. This is a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-477449","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\n ![\"EarthSnap\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1767050408_484_earthsnap-banner-news.webp.webp\")
\n<\/a><\/p>\n