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GJ 1061

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

GJ 1061 is a red dwarf star located 12 light years from Earth in the constellation of Horologium. Even though it is a nearby star, it has an apparent magnitude of about 13,[1] so it can only be seen with at least a medium-sized telescope.

The proper motion of GJ 1061 has been known since 1974, but it was thought to be further away at 25 light years based upon an estimated parallax of 0.130. The RECONS accurately decided its distance in 1997. At that time, it was the 20th-nearest star system to the Sun. The discovery team noted that many more stars like this are likely to be discovered nearby.[1]

This star is a small, dim, red dwarf, close to the lower mass limit. It has an estimated mass of about 12.5% that of the Sun and is only about 0.2% as luminous.[2] The star shows no major infrared excess due to circumstellar dust.[3]

Planetary system

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Estimated size comparison with Earth and visual representation of the exoplanets

On August 13, 2019, a planetary system was announced orbiting the star GJ 1061 by the Red Dots project for finding terrestrial planets around nearby red dwarf stars.[4] The planet GJ 1061 d orbits in the habitable zone of its star at around 0.054 AU and the planet GJ 1061 c orbits in the inner edge of the habitable zone at 0.035 AU.[4] GJ 1061 b is the closest planet to its star at just 0.021 AU. GJ 1061 is a non-variable star that does not have flares, so there is a greater chance that the exoplanets still have their atmosphere if they had one.[5]

References

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  1. 1.0 1.1 Henry, Todd J.; et al. (1997). "The solar neighborhood IV: discovery of the twentieth nearest star". The Astronomical Journal. 114: 388–395. Bibcode:1997AJ....114..388H. doi:10.1086/118482.
  2. Pineda, J. Sebastian; Youngblood, Allison; France, Kevin (September 2021). "The M-dwarf Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Sample. I. Determining Stellar Parameters for Field Stars". The Astrophysical Journal. 918 (1): 23. arXiv:2106.07656. Bibcode:2021ApJ...918...40P. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ac0aea. S2CID 235435757. 40.
  3. Avenhaus, H.; et al. (December 2012). "The nearby population of M-dwarfs with WISE: a search for warm circumstellar dust". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 548: 15. arXiv:1209.0678. Bibcode:2012A&A...548A.105A. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201219783. S2CID 56397054. A105.
  4. 4.0 4.1 Dreizler, S.; Jeffers, S. V.; Rodríguez, E.; Zechmeister, M.; Barnes, J.R.; Haswell, C.A.; Coleman, G. A. L.; Lalitha, S.; Hidalgo Soto, D.; Strachan, J.B.P.; Hambsch, F-J.; López-González, M. J.; Morales, N.; Rodríguez López, C.; Berdiñas, Z. M.; Ribas, I.; Pallé, E.; Reiners, Ansgar; Anglada-Escudé, G. (2019-08-13). "Red Dots: A temperate 1.5 Earth-mass planet in a compact multi-terrestrial planet system around GJ1061". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 493 (1): 536. arXiv:1908.04717. Bibcode:2020MNRAS.493..536D. doi:10.1093/mnras/staa248. S2CID 199551874.
  5. Starr, Michelle (27 August 2019). "Three Rocky Exoplanets Have Been Found Orbiting a Star Just 12 Light-Years Away". ScienceAlert. Retrieved 2020-10-07.