A newly discovered alien world could help astronomers better understand the atmospheres of rocky planets.
The newfound exoplanet, Gliese 486 b, circles a dim red dwarf star just 26 light-years from Earth and is about 1.3 times larger and 2.8 times more massive than our home planet, a new study reports.
Gliese 486 b whips around its host star once every 1.47 Earth days, and it crosses that star's face from our perspective. Gliese 486 b is therefore the third-closest such "transiting" alien world known — and the closest one that orbits a red dwarf with a measured mass. (The star Gliese 486 is about 30% as massive as our sun.)
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