Nearby star Gliese 1002 hosts two Earth-mass exoplanets in its habitable zone

29. 11. 2022

Using the radial velocity method astronomers discovered two small exoplanets orbiting nearby star Gliese 1002. The star is a small red dwarf only 16 light years away. The new discovery makes it the 22nd closest planetary system.

Star with 2 exoplanets

Gliese 1002 (GJ 1002, LHS 2) is a small star with only 12 % solar mass and about half its temperature. It lies only 16 light years away which is very close in the astronomical world. 

With data from spectrographs ESPRESSO and CARMENES installed on telescopes VLT and Calar Alto astronomers discovered two exoplanets orbiting the star. Both of them have masses only slightly higher than Earth and both of them orbit in the habitable zone of the host star.

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