Astronomy Swiss researchers discover special exoplanet

SDA

28.1.2025 - 11:00

The orbit of the newly discovered exoplanet HD 20794 d oscillates between the habitable and non-habitable zones (green).
The orbit of the newly discovered exoplanet HD 20794 d oscillates between the habitable and non-habitable zones (green).
Keystone

An international research team with Swiss participation has discovered a new exoplanet with a special property. According to the University of Geneva, the newly discovered planet allows new hypotheses about extraterrestrial life to be tested.

Keystone-SDA

The planet, named HD 20794 d, oscillates on its elliptical orbit around its sun between the habitable and non-habitable zones, as the University of Geneva announced on Tuesday. The habitable zone is the area around a star in which liquid water could theoretically exist. Evidence of the discovery was published on Tuesday in the scientific journal "Astronomy & Astrophysics".

According to the university, this configuration is particularly interesting for astronomers to test hypotheses about the habitability of a planet.

HD 20794 d is a so-called super-Earth, i.e. a rocky planet that is larger than the Earth. It is part of a solar system 19.7 light years away from us that contains two other planets. Astronomers consider this distance to be close. According to the University of Geneva, this proximity makes it easier to study the planet.

Result of 20 years of research

According to the University of Geneva, the discovery of the exoplanet was made possible by data collected with various telescopes over the past 20 years.

Exoplanets are planets that exist outside our solar system and orbit around other stars. Since the discovery of the first exoplanet in 1995, for which Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2019, astronomers have discovered more than 7,000 exoplanets.