They discovered a planet the same size as Earth that completes a year in just 17 hours

This discovery could have been possible thanks to the project called Speculoos, which is responsible for studying these small stars and the planets that surround them, as there is not much information about this type of star.

(Keep reading: A distant exoplanet could hide oceans and a possible sign of life.)

“We designed Speculoos specifically to explore nearby ultracool dwarf stars.” In search of rocky planets. With the Speculoos prototype and crucial assistance from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, We discovered the famous Trappist-1 system, and that was a great start!said project manager Michael Gillon.

Astronomers have discovered that the exoplanet is relatively close to Earth, since then It is located about 55 light-years awaywhich gave him the name Speculus-3B. This star has a special property, which is that It can complete its orbit around the star in just 17 hours.

It is believed that due to the peculiarity of the days and nights they never end, which means that “the planet is tidally locked, so In broad daylight, always look at the star, Likewise the moon to the earth. The night side would be locked in endless darkness“The statement reads.

(Important: Two hours before launch, the first flight with astronauts of the Boeing Starliner ship was postponed: these are the reasons.)

The curious fact is that the exoplanet receives more than 16 times the energy per second that Earth receives from the Sun, and researchers consider Speculoos-3 b “an excellent candidate for follow-up observations using the James Webb Space Telescope.”

Because it could provide unknown information about its atmosphere and surface minerals and “could help understand the stellar neighborhood and our place in it.” This will be the next step in this investigation Determine whether it could be inhabited or already exists, according to a NASA statement.