Scientists discover a nearby superearth

Ph.D. student Alejandro Suárez Mascareño, of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the University of La Laguna (ULL), and his thesis director, Rafael Rebolo and Jonay Isaí González Hernández, have discovered a "superearth"-type planet, GJ 536 b, whose mass is around 5.4 Earth masses, in orbit around a nearby very bright star. The study has been accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics; researchers from several cou