Artist’s impression of L 98-59b

This artist’s animation shows L 98-59b, the closest planet to the star in the L 98-59 planetary system. The system is 35 light-years away from our Solar System and contains four confirmed rocky planets with a potential fifth, furthest from the star.

In 2021, astronomers used data from the Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectroscopic Observations (ESPRESSO) instrument on ESO’s VLT to measure the mass of L 98-59b, finding it to be half that of Venus. This makes it the lightest planet measured to date using the radial velocity technique.