Gliese 176 b is a super-Earth exoplanet located in the constellation Taurus about 31 light-years away. This planet revolves around its parent red dwarf star, Gliese 176. (also called “HD 285968”). Gliese 176 is a red dwarf in the Taurus constellation. It is not part of the Taurus constellation outline, but it is within its boundaries. It is approximately 30 light-years away, based on parallax measurements from the Hipparcos mission. A Super-Earth orbits the star.
The original announcement mixed up the planetary periodicity with the stellar periodicity of 40 days, resulting in a 10.24 day period for a 25 Earth-mass planet. Following readings filtered out the star’s rotation, yielding a more accurate estimate of the planet’s orbit and minimum mass.
The planet orbits within its star’s inner magnetosphere. The 450 K temperature mentioned is a “thermal equilibrium” temperature. It revolves around its host star once every 1.47 Earth days, crossing its face from our perspective. As a result, it is the third closest known “transiting” alien world and the only one that orbits a red dwarf with a measured mass.
It is thought to be dominated by a rocky core, but the exact mass is unknown. If the orbit is oriented in such a way that we see it nearly face-on, the planet could be significantly more massive than the lower limit. If that’s the case, it could have attracted a gas envelope like Uranus or Gliese 436 b.
Furthermore, the discovery team determined that Gliese 176 b has a likely surface temperature of around 800 degrees Fahrenheit (430 degrees Celsius) — probably cool enough to support an atmosphere but hot enough to be studied from afar. CARMENES discovers planets using the “radial velocity” method, which detects slight wobbles in a star’s motion caused by the gravitational tug of an orbiting world. The instrument detected a wobble with Gliese 486, which occurs every 1.47 Earth days.
The surface temperature, on the other hand, is closer to that of Venus, so Gliese 176 b isn’t a good candidate for life as we know it, according to Trifonov, who envisions a world “hot and dry, interspersed with volcanos and glowing lava rivers.” Future observations of Gliese 176 b will help us understand how well rocky planets can hold their atmospheres, what they’re made of, and how stellar radiation affects them.
