MEXICO: California’s Lick Observatory, perched atop Mount Hamilton in the Diablo Range just east of San Jose, has been the site of astronomers confirming the existence of a trio of “super-Earth” sized planets 54 light years distant.
According to planetary scientists from Tennessee State University, the University of California Observatories, the University of Hawaii and the University of California, it’s taken years to make a confirmation as to whether or not there were indeed planets orbiting HD 7924, a K-type main sequence star located in the constellation Cassiopeia. The three planets in question are incredibly close to their host star at just 35.9 million miles – closer than Mercury orbits our own sun – and hurtle through space at unprecedented speeds: each planet completes one orbit around HD 7924 in just 5, 15 and 24 days respectively.
Lauren Weiss, a graduate student from UC Berkeley that was involved with the research, says that these three exoplanets are unlike anything that we’re familiar with in regards to the planets in our own solar system. The mass of each of these planets is anywhere between seven and eight times the mass of our own planet Weiss stated, adding that the planets are also noteworthy because of how close they orbit their home star.
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