Planet Hunters Discover a World That Could Harbor Life

A newfound "super-Earth" just 20 light-years away appears to reside in the habitable zone of its host star

We are really living in a time of the ultimate discovery. I am truly grateful for that! Science is breaking new ground every year and things we thought to be impossible 5-10 years ago are becoming common knowledge to this generation. I am no scientific boffin, so I am going to post part of the article here. I will provide a link for the rest.

I am sure all of you will enjoy this and find it interesting.

After more than a decade of telescopic monitoring, astronomers have added two newfound worlds to a nearby planetary system already known to harbor four other planets, and one of the new discoveries looks to be the kind of place where life might be able to take hold.

By monitoring a small, nearby star for 11 years with one of the 10-meter Keck telescopes in Hawaii and combining the data with 4.3 years of similar observations published by another team, Vogt and his co-authors found two orbiting planets, with respective masses of at least 3.1 times and seven times the mass of Earth. Both qualify as quite small in the field of known exoplanets, in which most of the hundreds of worlds that have been discovered are giants larger than Jupiter. The planetary system, which encircles the red dwarf star Gliese 581 only 20 light-years away, now ranks among the largest known. (In August it was announced that another planetary system boasts at least five, and possibly seven, worlds.)

Of the four previously known planets orbiting the diminutive star, two bracket what astrobiologists call the habitable zone, or the "Goldilocks zone"—the region of space surrounding a star that is neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water and just possibly life. The smaller of the two new worlds, Gliese 581g, orbits right between those two planets, placing it more squarely in the star's habitable zone. Nevertheless, Earthlings would not mistake Gliese 581g for their home planet—in addition to its so-called super-Earth dimensions, it orbits a star far smaller and dimmer than the sun, and its average surface temperatures would vary dramatically, from well below freezing on its night side to scorching hot on the day side.

Even if the planet proves out, the question of whether Gliese 581g actually hosts any biological activity will remain open. "Any discussion of life at this point is of course speculative," Butler cautioned. "That being said, on Earth, anywhere you find liquid water you find life in abundance."

www.scientificamerican.com...

I am convinced that we will find a planet that harbors some intelligent life forms in the next 10 years.

This has been posted at least twice already since yesterday
and this isn't new, try discovered about 2 years ago

reply to post by GummB


Jeewiz! I'm so sorry... Posted it the minute the e-mail notification came through.
You could lay off the attitude though. Wouldn't kill you.

Mods- Please close thread before someone has a hernia.
Thanks.