Astronomers have made the first ever observation from a ground-based telescope of a super-Earth passing in front of a star similar to the Sun.
Since the reports have surfaced everybody has been talking about it. The view was grabbed by an international team of astronomers.
The first-of-its kind view was done from the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, Spain thanks to a ground-based telescope. Astronomers didn’t miss the opportunity to measure the transit of a super-Earth in front of a Sun-like star for the first time.
Lead author Ernst de Mooij of Queen’s University Belfast in the U.K. in a statement: “Our observations show that we can detect the transits of small planets around Sun-like stars using ground-based telescopes.” The task of measuring was accomplished by the state-of-the-art instrument located at La Palma’s international observatory.
The measurement has been termed as crucial by the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics. Researchers strongly feel that it is the initial step in analyzing the planet’s atmosphere. Identified as 55 Cancri e, the exoplanet has been found to orbit a star located only 40 light-years from the Earth. Moreover, it is faintly visible to the naked eye.