A group of university experts carried out a new study on GJ 3378b, and exoplanet which is close to ours.
The research managed to calculate the mass and orbital period of the object, as well as the distance from its star.
The most surprising thing is that it is located in the «habitable area»so it could be a place where life develops.
The details of the super-Earth exoplanet: «It is practically our next-door neighbor»
A team of astronomers of the University of California, Irvine discovered key details of the exoplanet GJ 3378b, what is similar to Earth and orbits a star just 25 light years from the Solar System.
The results of the discovery were captured in a scientific article published on July 1 in the magazine The Astrophysical Journal.
The planet had been detected in 2024, but initial estimates described it as a possible mini-Neptune, that is, a world with a thick gas envelope. At that time, it was estimated that its mass was about 5.3 times that of the Earth and that it completed its orbit in 24.73 days.
The new study changed that completely. The research combined observations from several high-precision spectrographs and obtained a different orbital solution: a mass 2.3 times that of the Earth, an orbital period of 21.45 days and a distance to its star of approximately 0.097 astronomical units.
As the estimated mass is reduced, the probability that GJ 3378b is a rocky planet increases considerably, a «supertierra«, instead of a small gas giant. That distinction is fundamental: rocky planets are the only ones where, under the right conditions, life could develop as we know it.
The planet orbits a red dwarf and receives approximately 90% of the energy that the Earth receives from the Sun. That places it within the so-called «habitable area» of its star, also known as the «Goldilocks» region. This is the orbital strip where a planet receives the ideal amount of stellar radiation for water to exist in a liquid state, as long as it has an atmosphere.
The proximity of the system also has symbolic weight. «This is exciting. It is one of our closest cosmic neighbors. 25 light years seems like a huge distance, but the Milky Way is about 100,000 light years across, so from that perspective, e«It’s practically our next-door neighbor,» stated Paul Robertson, lead author of the article.
Does the super-Earth have an atmosphere?
One of the questions that persist is If the planet has an atmosphere, or if it ever had one. GJ 3378b sits right on the edge of what researchers call the «cosmic shoreline»: the region around a star where stellar radiation can strip a planet of its gaseous envelope if it lies beyond that threshold.
The case of Mars illustrates this risk within the Solar System itself. According to astronomers, the red planet once had an atmosphere similar to Earth’s, before solar radiation completely destroyed it. The question is whether GJ 3378b suffered—or is—the same fate.
For now, the technology available is not enough to answer it. Scientists will have to wait for the construction and launch of future observatories to confirm whether the planet really retains an atmosphere. This information will be decisive in evaluating any sign of habitability.
«If a planet in the habitable zone has a suitable atmosphere, we could justify further investigation in search of biosignatures, liquid water or other signs of life, which depend both on the presence of an atmosphere and on the right amount of heat provided by the host star,» said Gogod James, another of the experts who worked on the research.
