GJ 1132b – what do we know about Earth-like planet?

An Earth-sized planet close enough for scientists to observe with telescopes could prove to be instrumental in learning more about the worlds beyond our solar system.

GJ 1132b, which is 39 light-years away from Earth, was spotted by robotic telescopes at the Cerro-Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. The powerful telescopes detected a miniscule change in starlight as the planet orbited around its host star, a small red dwarf.

An initial description of the planet in the latest edition of the journal Nature reveals that, like the Earth's moon, GJ 1132b is tidally bound to its host star, so it keeps one face permanently turned to the light while the other half remains in darkness. The planet is similar to Earth in size and mass but orbits far closer to its host star than the Earth does to the Sun, meaning a scalding temperature of around 260C – or, as the report's co-author Zachory Berta-Thompson summarises it, "burnt-cookie hot".

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Such intense heat rules out the possibility of water or intelligent life being found on the planet. Crucially, however, this temperature is not high enough to burn off the planet's atmosphere, thereby providing a fertile ground for astronomers to study. Specifically, researchers believe that the planet is close enough to detect the colour of its sunsets and its wind speeds.

Berta-Thompson spelt out just how important the new discovery could be for the future of space exploration. "If this planet still has an atmosphere, then we might find other, cooler planets that also have atmospheres and orbit small stars. We can then imagine interrogating the atmospheres for molecules that come from life," he said.

"Our ultimate goal is to find a twin Earth, but along the way we've found a twin Venus," Dr David Charbonneau, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told the Daily Telegraph. Charbonneau predicted that the new planet's atmosphere would resemble that of Venus, which is dense, hot and sulphuric.

Answers to scientists' questions could come sooner rather than later, with the scheduled 2018 launch of the James Webb Space Telescope raising hopes that the instrument could be used to find out more about the planet's composition and atmosphere.