The Planets Align

Look out into the morning sky this January, and cloud cover permitting, you may get a chance to see – through your own eyes – Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter dotted along the sky.

Depending upon the angle at which you manage to see this fabulous array of planets, Saturn should appear in or near the constellation Ophiucus.

Now, when you find Ophiucus, you need to focus properly. Another planet, an exo-planet of somewhat great significance, has also joined in the party. Although it isn’t visible to the naked eye, it is causing quite a stir.

Named HIP 80824 and V2306 Ophiuchi, technically, and Wolf 1061 after the German astronomer Max Wolf who catalogued it back in 1919, is a dwarf red star. A Class M one. OK, Class M stars are the most common in our local vicinity, but this one has an extra little zing about it.

Orbiting it are three planets.

They haven’t been given names yet, like Saturn or Pluto, instead they are merely called Wolf B, Wolf C and Wolf D. All are thought to be rocky worlds, but Wolf C is the one that is generating the most excitement. It is in what is referred to as the Goldilocks Zone – a region around a star that is ‘just right’ for life.

And Wolf C is a Super-Earth.

At a mere 14 Light Years away, it is somewhat of a neighbour. Now, a Light Year is only six trillion miles. And multiply that by 14 and you get the distance between Earth and this new Super-Earth: 84 trillion miles.

To further put this into perspective – Andromeda, our neighbouring galaxy is 2,200,000 Light Years away, so it took the light from those stars 2,200,000 years to reach us. Wolf C is a mere snip at 14 years away – light-wise.

This is a new world to be discovered. A new planetary system. Astronomers at the University of New South Wales take the credit for the find, back in December 2015.

But the question that has to be asked is… is there life on this neighbouring world… and if so, did they discover us before we did them?

Happy Sky Watching!

Above is an image from Stellarium showing the alignment of our planets and the location of the Wolf 1061 system.