A team of astronomers from the University of Hawaii at Manoa (Hawaii), the University of California at Berkeley, the University of California and Tennessee State University (USA) has discovered a planetary system made up of three planets that it is only 54 light years distant from Earth . They would, therefore, be the three planets closest to ours.
The finding has been possible thanks to the measurements of the robotic telescope Automated Planet Finder (APF) in the Lick Observatory in California (USA), the WM Keck Observatory in Maunakea (Hawaii) and the Automatic Photometric Telescope (APT) that is found at the Fairborn Observatory in Arizona (USA). The combination of the data from these three telescopes (detecting the wobble of the star HD 7924) has allowed the discovery of a planetary system orbiting a nearby star. Each of the three new planets, with masses of 7 or 8 times that of the Earth, completes its orbit in just 5, 15 and 24 days, respectively , since they are even closer than Mercury with respect to our Sun.
“Initially APF was used as a normal telescope, which would stay up all night looking from one star to another. But the idea of leaving a computer working during the night shift was more appealing after months of few hours of sleep. So they worked on software to replace us, ”explains BJ Fulton, a student participating in the study.
Each of these telescopes has helped to find evidence that has made up this new planetary puzzle, verifying the planets and ruling out any other explanation. It is thus the closest planetary system to Earth , a discovery that astronomers hope to repeat around many nearby stars in the coming years thanks to robotic telescopes.
“ This level of automation is a game changer in astronomy . It’s a bit like owning a driverless car that goes shopping for planets, ”explains Andrew Howard, co-author of the study.
