Indian scientists never cease to amaze us with interesting discoveries as they think beyond human imagination. This is the reason why Indian scientists are praised for being smart in their approach. In recent news, a team of Indian scientists from the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad have discovered a sub-Saturn or super-Neptune size planet, which is 27 times the mass of Earth and 6 times the radius of the planet.
The scientists once again made India proud. With this recent discovery, India has joined the group of countries which has discovered planets around stars. According to their study, the super-Neptune revolves around a Sun-like star, which is some 600 light years away from Earth.
The latest discovery was made by calculating the mass of the planet using the originally designed ‘PRL Advance Radial-velocity Abu-Sky Search’ (PARAS) spectrograph (an instrument used to split and calculate the wavelengths present in Electromagnetic radiation and to calculate the relative amounts of radiation at each wavelength) coupled with 1.2m telescope at PRL’s Gurushikar Observatory in Mount Abu.
In recent newsfeed on ISRO’s website, scientists said the name of the host star is K2-236 or EPIC 211945201 and the planet will be called as EPIC 211945201b or K2-236b. According to the scientists, the planet was found to go around the star in about 19.5 days.
It is learnt that the planet’s surface temperature is estimated to be around 600 degrees Celsius because of the fact that it is very close to the host star. It is seven times closer to its star when compared to the distance between the Earth and the Sun.
This goes to show that life on K2-236b is not possible. However, Scientists feel that the discovery is vital for understanding the formation mechanism of super-Neptune planet type of planets as they are nearer to the host star.
