The CARMENES planet-hunting project has shocked scientists by discovering that 1 in 10 of the newly found planets show signs of liquid water.
Various types of planets have been discovered in the new mission – (Image courtesy of NASA).
According to Sky & Telescope, the CARMENES project is based on the eponymous instrument mounted on the telescope at the Calar Alto Observatory in Spain. It consists of two spectrographs: one that collects light in the visible range and another that operates in the infrared range.
A report recently published in the scientific journal Astronomy & Astrophysics highlights CARMENES’ achievements from 2016 to the present, including substantial data on the discovery of 33 completely new planets, as well as the confirmation of 26 other planets from previously suspected planetary signatures.
Even more surprising, among these are six planets described as “potentially habitable”, meaning they are rocky planets similar to Earth, possessing the necessary conditions to retain water in liquid form, such as rivers, lakes, and oceans, similar to those on our planet.
Another exciting aspect is that all the planets identified by CARMENES are located within 60 light-years from Earth, a distance sufficient for scientists to study them in greater detail using more advanced tools.
According to scientist Ignasi Ribas from the Institute of Space Science and the Institute of Space Research of Catalonia (Spain), a member of the CARMENES project, they identified an average of 1.4 planets around each star, a particularly high ratio.
Among the discovered planets, there are a total of six Jupiter-like planets with masses over 50 times that of Earth, ten Neptune-like planets with masses between 10 to 50 times that of Earth, and 43 super-Earths with masses up to 10 times that of Earth.
