Barnard’s star has an exoplanet
Bern/Geneva - A group of researchers including the University of Bern and the University of Geneva has discovered an exoplanet orbiting Barnard’s star. The ESPRESSO spectrograph, which was largely developed in Switzerland, played a vital part in the discovery of Barnard b.
A group of researchers including the University of Bern and the University of Geneva as well as the National Centre of Competence in Research PlanetS has discovered the existence of an exoplanet orbiting Barnard’s star. The University of Bern explains in a corresponding press release that Barnard’s star is a red dwarf in the second-closest star system to our Sun. The discovery contributes to the better understanding of our strange cosmic neighborhood as well as planetary formation around red dwarfs.
The exoplanet was discovered after four years of observations at the European Southern Observatory (ESO). The high-resolution spectrograph ESPRESSO at ESO’s Very Large Telescope played a key role in this. According to the press release, ESPRESSO was largely developed at Swiss universities. Melissa Hobson, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Geneva and co-author of the study, commented: “The precision achieved by this instrument allowed us to detect the small signals from Barnard b, proving once again that red dwarfs are excellent targets for discovering low-mass planets.”
The researchers used the radial velocity method to detect Barnard b. This is based on oscillations in the host star caused by the gravitational attraction of a planet orbiting it. The oscillations change the properties of the light emitted by the star. The researchers were able to measure these changes using ESPRESSO. During the work on Barnard b they were also able to identify signals that could belong to three other exoplanets. ce/hs
