Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Discovery: A New Earth-like planet.

New Earth-like planet may have water, life
PTI
thehindu.com
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Called Gliese 581g, the exoplanet is located 123 trillion miles away from Earth
Scientists claim to have discovered a potentially habitable planet which has an environment much similar to that of the Earth and may contain water and even life.
The exoplanet, called Gliese 581g, is located around 123 trillion miles away from the Earth and orbits a star at a distance that places it squarely in the habitable or the Goldilocks zone, the scientists said.

The research, published in the Astrophysical Journal, suggests that the planet could contain liquid water on its surface, meaning it tops the league of planets and moons rated as being most like Earth, they said.

Compelling case

“Our findings offer a very compelling case for a potentially habitable planet,” said lead researcher Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

“The fact that we were able to detect this planet so quickly and so nearby tells us that planets like this must be really common,” Prof. Vogt was quoted as saying byDaily Mail.

The new findings are based on 11 years of observations of the nearby red dwarf star Gliese 581 using the HIRES spectrometer on the Keck I Telescope by a team from UC Santa Cruz and the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
The team reported the discovery of two new planets around Gliese 581. This brings the total number of known planets around this star to six, the most yet discovered in a planetary system outside of our own.

Like our solar system, the planets around Gliese 581 have nearly-circular orbits, the team said. Gliese 581 has a mass three to four times the Earth's and orbits its star in just under 37 days.

Its mass indicates that it is probably a rocky planet with a definite surface and enough gravity to hold on to an atmosphere, they said.
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