They include 43 “Earth and Super-Earths.”
As of 2015, the Consortium’s purpose has been to look for terrestrial-type exoplanets around nearby red dwarf stars. Since then, the CARMENES instrument has doubled the number of known exoplanets around nearby M-type stars using the Radial Velocity Method.
The 59 exoplanets they identified between 2016 and 2019 are either new discoveries or confirmations of previously-detected candidates, including 6 Jupiter-like gas giants, 10 Neptune-like gas giants, and 43 Earths and Super-Earths. A dozen of these latter planets were found to orbit within the stars’ circumsolar habitable zones.
“Since it came into operation, CARMENES has re-analyzed 17 known planets and has discovered and confirmed 59 new planets around stars in the vicinity of our Solar System, making a significant contribution to expanding the census of nearby exoplanets,” said Ignasi Ribas, a researcher at the ICE-CSIC and Director of the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC) who led the study, in a recent MPIA press release.
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