A “Super Earth” – a planet much bigger and colder than our world – was discovered in orbit around a nearby star, scientists announced in a study published Wednesday.

How big? More than three times the mass of the Earth. How cold? A chilly temperature of about 238 degrees below zero. Super-Earths are planets with masses larger than the Earth but not as big as the ice giants in our solar system, such as Neptune and Uranus.

The planet and its star are nearby in cosmic terms only: At 30 trillion miles from Earth, Barnard’s Star is the closest single star to our solar system. For decades, astronomers have looked for planets around the star.

The newly discovered planet, dubbed Barnard’s Star b, is the second-closest known exoplanet to the Earth and orbits the fastest-moving star in the night sky. Exoplanets are planets outside our solar system.

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The distances to the nearest stars from the sun. Barnard’s star is the second closest star system, and the nearest single star to us. (Photo: IEEC/Science-Wave – Guillem Ramisa)