Indian Scientists At Ahmedabad-Based Center Discover New Planet 600 Light Years Away From Earth

A team of scientists at the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad have discovered a sub-Saturn size exoplanet around a Sun-like star.

The host star is 600 light years away and the planet goes around the star once in 19.5 earth days. The diameter of the planet is approximately six times that of the earth and the temperature of its surface is around 600 degree celcius. The name of the host star is EPIC 211945201 or K2-236. The newly discovered planet will be known as EPIC 211945201b or K2-236b.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the team of scientists on Twitter. He tweeted "Immensely proud of our scientists, who created history by discovering a sub-Saturn size planet 600 light years away from the Earth. Congratulations to them. The discovery puts India among select countries.”

The indigenously designed PRL Advance Radial-velocity Abu-sky Search (PARAS) spectrograph integrated with 1.2m Telescope at PRL’s Gurushikhar Observatory in Mount Abu, played an instrumental role in the discovery.

The discovery was made by measuring the mass of the planet using PARAS spectrograph. With this discovery, India joins the elite league of countries which have discovered planets around stars.