Question: Recently, Indian scientists have discovered a planet similar to ‘Super-Neptune’. Consider the following statements in this regard-
(1) This scientific team was led by Prof Abhijit Chakraborty.
(2) Name of planet is ‘EPIC-211945201B’.
(3) The discovery was made by the indigenously designed “PRL Advance Radial-velocity Abu-sky Search” (PARAS) spectrograph situated at Mount Abu.
Select the correct statement.
(a) 1, 2
(b) 1, 3
(c) 1, 2, 3
(d) only 2
Answer: (c)
Related Facts:
- The scientific team, led by Prof Abhijit Chakraborty of Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad, has found a sub-Saturn or super-Neptune size planet around a Sun-like star.
- Mass of this planet is about 27 Earth Mass and size of 6 Earth Radii and this host star itself is about 600 light years away from the Earth.
- The name of the host star is EPIC 211945201 or K2-236. Hence the planet will be known as EPIC 211945201b or K2-236b.
- The discovery was made by measuring the mass of the planet using the “PRL Advance Radial-velocity Abu-sky Search” (PARAS) spectrograph.
- This indigenously designed spectrograph is integrated with 1.2m Telescope at PRL’s Gurushikhar Observatory in Mount Abu, India.
- Very few such spectrographs exist mostly in the USA and in the Europe and it is the first of its kind spectrograph in the country (India).
- Discovery would be helpful in understanding the structure of the Exoplanet.
Reference:
https://www.isro.gov.in/discovery-of-sub-saturn-exoplanet-around-sun-star
https://www.hindustantimes.com/science/in-a-first-for-indian-science-ahmedabad-researchers-find-an-exoplanet/story-ZUDPqefidMqRqyZUjGETHN.html