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Morocco: Oukaïmeden Observatory discovers a new «Small Planet»

After contributing to the discovery of seven planets in an orbit around a dwarf star, 39 light-years away from Earth, NASA will announce a new discovery tomorrow with the contribution of the Morrocan Oukaïmeden Sky Survey, commonly known as the Oukaïmeden Observatory.

Ph. DR.
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The announcement, scheduled on Wednesday, was postponed to tomorrow at 6PM. «This is a discovery that was made at the Oukaïmeden Observatory in the field of asteroids and then, was observed by NASA radio telescopes», reports Zouhair Benkhaldoun, director of the Oukaïmeden Observatory.

Indeed, the latter announced on its Facebook page that a new discovery will soon be announced, talking about «small planet discovered near ours», declared the Turkish News Agency Andulu, . The information was confirmed by our interlocutor, Zouhair Benkhaldoun.

«For technical details, this will be revealed by NASA tomorrow at 6PM. We don't have the right to speak about it yet. It is not a planet but a small asteroid-type planet that was discovered by the Oukaïmeden Observatory, which informed NASA. The latter was subsequently able to make interesting discoveries about the same asteroid.»

Zouhair Benkhaldoun

For this reason, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will hold a press conference to give more details on this new discovery, first reported by the giant Moroccan astronomical telescope.

The seven sister planets of Earth

The MOSS, Morocco Oukaimeden Sky Survey, had discovered more than 1,000 asteroids from 2011 to 2017, says the Oukaïmeden Observatory on its website.

This was also the topic of a major announcement by NASA in February 2017, when the US agency said it had discovered seven planets in an orbit around a dwarf star, at 39 light-years of earth.

«Exoplanets [which] are all rocky and [which] could have temperatures quite close to those of the Earth», said NASA. A discovery made thanks to the contribution of the Observatory of Oukaïmeden and one of its telescopes dedicated to exoplanets.

 Zouhair Benkhaldoun, director of the Oukaïmeden Observatory. Zouhair Benkhaldoun, director of the Oukaïmeden Observatory.

«To this day, we have never discovered a system of seven planets, with the same characteristics as the Earth», said Zouhair Benkhaldoun, astrophysicist and head of the Observatory, to the press.

With the TRAPPIST-Nord telescopes, installed in Morocco, TRAPPIST-Sud in Chile, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and those of NASA, studies and research in astronomy are collaborative and punctual. Since its installation in Morocco, MOSS has not failed to distinguish itself, associating the name of Morocco with several major discoveries in this field.

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