Une exoplanète d'une taille presque identique à celle de la Terre a été détectée à 146 années-lumière par des astrophysiciens australiens.

Researchers have identified a promising Earth-sized exoplanet candidate in archival Kepler data, underlining how older observations continue to yield new worlds.

HD 137010 b, a 146 años luz, se parece a la Tierra por tamaño y órbita, pero ronda −68 ºC. Así se detectó y qué falta para confirmarlo bien. En los archivos del telescopio espacial Kepler, ya jubilado...

The transit method is currently one of our best means for the detection of potentially habitable "Earth-like" exoplanets. In principle, given sufficiently high photometric precision, cool Earth-sized exoplanets orbiting Sun-like stars could be discovered via single transit detections; however, this has not previously been achieved. In this work, we report a 10-hour long single transit event which occurred on the $V=10.1$ K-dwarf HD 137010 during K2 Campaign 15 in 2017. The transit is comparatively shallow ($225\pm10$ ppm), but is detected at high signal-to-noise thanks to the exceptionally high photometric precision achieved for the target. Our analysis of the K2 photometry, historical and new imaging observations, and archival radial velocities and astrometry strongly indicate that the event was astrophysical, occurred on-target, and can be best explained by a transiting planet candidate, which we designate HD 137010 b. The single observed transit implies a radius of $1.06^{+0.06}_{-0.05}$ $R_\oplus$, and assuming negligible orbital eccentricity we estimate an orbital period of $355^{+200}_{-59}$ days ($a=0.88^{+0.32}_{-0.10}$ AU), properties comparable to Earth. We project an incident flux of $0.29^{+0.11}_{-0.13}$ $I_\oplus$, which would place HD 137010 b near the outer edge of the habitable zone. This is the first planet candidate with Earth-like radius and orbital properties that transits a Sun-like star bright enough for substantial follow-up observations.

Une exoplanète d'une taille presque identique à celle de la Terre a été détectée à 146 années-lumière par des astrophysiciens australiens.

Donderdag 05-02-2026 De Kepler-ruimtetelescoop van NASA werd in 2018 buiten gebruik gesteld omdat de brandstof op was. De missie was erg succesvol; de satelliet vond zo'n 2600 exoplaneten. Nog altijd....