00:00stars are known for being some of the largest objects in the cosmos with some clocking in at
00:09upwards of 1700 times the size of our sun however they're not all like that and recently astronomers
00:14detected an earth-sized planet orbiting a star that is only around the size of jupiter the star
00:20is named speculus 3 and it's an ultra cool dwarf star the system resides quite close to our own
00:25only around 55 light years away the planet orbiting it named speculus 3b is basically the size of our
00:31planet however it orbits its host star extremely closely in fact a year on speculus 3b lasts only
00:3817 hours and it has a synchronous orbit meaning one side is always facing the star and the other side
00:44is in a state of constant night luckily the star as its ultra cool dwarf moniker might suggest is
00:49much cooler than other stars as it's only around 10 the mass of the sun that means it burns at less
00:55than 50 the temperature and is a thousand times less bright however stars like this tend to be far
01:00more active than their larger brighter cousins astronomers observing it say that they witnessed
01:05at least one large flare and given its orbiting planets proximity that means it gets frequent
01:09heavy doses of cosmic radiation with experts saying this has likely led to the planet losing its
01:14atmosphere if it ever had one as it's exposed to around 16 times the amount of radiation we get here
01:20on earth
01:21on earth
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