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| The Kepler space telescope |
The cosmos has a way of hiding its secrets in plain sight. Sometimes, it takes a fresh pair of eyes—or a deep dive into an archive—to spot something extraordinary. That’s exactly what happened when an international team of scientists, including sharp-eyed citizen scientists, decided to revisit data from NASA’s retired Kepler Space Telescope. What they found is a fascinating cosmic echo: a candidate exoplanet that looks a lot like Earth but feels a lot like Mars.
Meet HD 137010 b, a possible rocky world located just 146 light-years away that is challenging our understanding of what a "habitable" planet really looks like .
A Year Like Ours, a Sun Like... an Ember?
In many ways, HD 137010 b is eerily familiar. It’s estimated to be a rocky planet, just slightly larger than Earth, orbiting a star that is remarkably similar to our own Sun—at least in type . Its most Earth-like trait? Its calendar.
From a single, painstakingly analyzed transit—the brief moment a planet crosses the face of its star—the science team, led by astrophysicist Alexander Venner, was able to deduce that HD 137010 b takes about 355 days to complete one orbit . That’s almost an exact Earth year.
But before you start packing your bags, you’ll need a much warmer coat. Its host star, HD 137010, while Sun-like in category, is actually a cooler, dimmer K-type dwarf . As a result, this new world receives less than one-third of the heat and light that we enjoy . This makes it a true "ice-cold Earth."
The Deep Freeze: Colder Than Mars
The numbers paint a starkly chilly picture. Researchers estimate that the surface temperature on HD 137010 b likely hovers around minus 90 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 68 degrees Celsius) . To put that in perspective, the average temperature on Mars is a relatively balmy minus 85 degrees Fahrenheit . This planet is, quite literally, colder than the Red Planet.
So, does that mean it's just a barren iceball? Not necessarily. And this is where the story gets really interesting. That 10-hour transit, captured during Kepler’s second mission (K2) in 2017, placed the planet tantalizingly close to the outer edge of its star's habitable zone—the "Goldilocks" region where temperatures might allow liquid water to exist on a planet's surface .
A 50-50 Shot at Habitability
The team’s models suggest a coin-flip scenario for the planet's potential to host life. They estimate a 40% chance that HD 137010 b falls within the "conservative" habitable zone and a 51% chance for the broader "optimistic" habitable zone . Conversely, there’s about a 50% chance it lies just beyond it, in the frozen wasteland .
The deciding factor, as it so often is with exoplanets, is the atmosphere.
If HD 137010 b possesses an atmosphere rich in carbon dioxide—a potent greenhouse gas—it could trap enough heat to raise temperatures above freezing, potentially allowing liquid water to flow . This would make it a "snowball Earth" scenario, a planet completely covered in ice but with a hidden potential for life, much like our own planet may have been in its distant past .
If not, it likely remains a permanently frozen world.
Why This "Candidate" Matters
It’s crucial to note that HD 137010 b is still classified as a planet candidate. Astronomers need to observe its transit more than once to confirm it’s a real planet and not a statistical fluke. This is the challenge of finding Earth-like worlds: because their orbits are long (about a year), they transit infrequently, making them incredibly hard to detect .
The discovery itself is a testament to human curiosity. The signal was first flagged by volunteers in the Planet Hunters citizen science project, proving that some discoveries require the human eye, not just algorithms . What makes this candidate so exciting is its potential. If confirmed, it would be the first Earth-sized exoplanet with a year-long orbit around a bright, Sun-like star that is close enough for us to study in detail .
Telescopes like NASA’s TESS or ESA’s CHEOPS might be able to spot a second transit and confirm its existence . Until then, HD 137010 b remains a thrilling "maybe"—a frozen echo of our own world, waiting to have its status confirmed.
For amateur stargazers wanting to explore the cosmos from their backyard, a quality telescope is the first step. You can check out the highly-rated Gskyer Astronomical Refracting Telescope, a great option for beginners, available on Amazon.
This discovery reminds us that the universe is full of planets that defy simple categorization. HD 137010 b might be a frozen wasteland, or it might be a temperate world with a thick CO2 blanket. Either way, it’s a crucial piece of the puzzle in our quest to understand just how common—and how diverse—Earth-like planets really are.
Source : NASA
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| Artists concept of exoplanet HD 137010 b |