A team of astronomers, led by researchers at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias has found three new planets orbiting a star, one of which might have conditions favourable for life. The discovery was possible with data from NASA’s TESS satellite, and with data from several ground-based observatories, among them the Spanish Calar Alto Observatory with its CARMENES instrument. The results are published today in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

An international team led by the University of Göttingen (Germany) with participation by researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) have discovered, using the CARMENES high resolution spectrograph at the Calar Alto Observatory (Almería) two new planets like the Earth around one of the closest stars within our Galactic neighbourhood.