SPECULOOS-3 b

Current Context : Astronomers discovered Earth-size planet around cool red dwarf star shares its name with a biscuit.

• SPECULOOS-3 b marks the second planetary system ever seen orbiting a red dwarf star.
• It is the second time astronomers have discovered a planetary system around a red dwarf star, the first being the Trappist-1 system.
• The discovery was made under the SPECULOOS Project mission.
• The aim of the mission (which is named after a popular Belgian biscuit called “Speculoos”) is to use infrared observations to detect rocky exoplanets around nearby ultracool stars like red dwarfs and so-called “failed stars,” or brown dwarfs.

ABOUT SPECULOOS -3B

• It takes around 17 hours to complete an orbit of the star.
• It is located around 55 light-years away from earth and is 100 times less bright than the sun and exhibits half the temperature of our star.
• It receives high levels of radiation from its sun, probably leaving the planet without an atmosphere.
• The Earth-size world was discovered by the Search for habitable Planets Eclipsing Ultra-cool Stars (SPECULOOS) project located at the Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile.