The planet, about the mass of Neptune and more than 13 times as massive as Earth, was detected orbiting an ultracool M-dwarf star called LHS 3154 — which is nine times less massive than our sun. This graphic compares the sizes of our sun and Earth with the smaller, cooler LHS 3154 star and its orbiting planet, LHS 3154b. For example, small M dwarf stars are the most common throughout the Milky Way galaxy, and they typically have small, rocky planets orbiting them, rather than gas giant planets. “The planet-forming disk around the low-mass star LHS 3154 is not expected to have enough solid mass to make this planet,” Mahadevan said. A team of scientists led by Mahadevan built the HPF, which was designed to detect planets orbiting within the habitable zone of small, cool stars.

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Persons: ”, Suvrath Mahadevan, Verne M, ” Mahadevan, Mahadevan, “, Megan Delamer, ” Delamer Organizations: CNN —, LHS, Penn, Penn State, McDonald Observatory Locations: Texas