Fourth potentially habitable planet discovered
Dennis
The Raelian Movement
for those who are not afraid of the future : http://www.rael.org
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/9056979/Fourth-potentially-habitabl
e-planet-discovered.html
Fourth potentially habitable planet discovered
A fourth potentially habitable planet outside our solar system - about 22
light-years from Earth - with temperatures that could support water and
lifen has been discovered by international astronomers.
3:00PM GMT 02 Feb 2012
The team analysed data from the European Southern Observatory about a star
known as GJ 667C, which is known as an M-class dwarf star and puts out much
less heat than our Sun.
At least three planets are orbiting close to the star, and one of them
appears to be close enough that it likely absorbs about as much incoming
light and energy as Earth, has similar surface temperatures and perhaps
water.
The new rocky planet, GJ 667Cc, orbits its star every 28.15 days - meaning
its year equals about one Earth month - and has a mass at least 4.5 times
that of Earth, according to the research published in Astrophysical Journal
Letters.
"This planet is the new best candidate to support liquid water and, perhaps,
life as we know it," said Guillem Anglada-Escudi who was with the Carnegie
Institution for Science when he conducted the research but has since moved
on to the University of Gottingen in Germany.
The theory about water, however, cannot be confirmed until astronomers learn
more about the planet's atmosphere.
Other planets circling the same star - which is part of a three-star system
- could include a gas-giant and an additional super-Earth with an orbital
period of 75 days, but more observations are needed to confirm that.
Some experts have been sceptical that M-class dwarf stars could have planets
that support life because they are too dim and tend to have lots of solar
flare activity which could send off lethal radiation to nearby planets.
And even though this star, GJ 667C, has a much lower abundance of elements
heavier than helium, such as iron, carbon, and silicon - the building blocks
of terrestrial planets - than our Sun, astronomers are intrigued by the
possibilities.
"This was expected to be a rather unlikely star to host planets. Yet there
they are, around a very nearby, metal-poor example of the most common type
of star in our galaxy," said co-author Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy
and astrophysics at University of California Santa Cruz.
"The detection of this planet, this nearby and this soon, implies that our
galaxy must be teeming with billions of potentially habitable rocky
planets."
French astronomers in May last year confirmed the first exoplanet, Gliese
581d, to meet key requirements for sustaining life. It is a rocky planet
about 20 light-years away.
Swiss astronomers reported in August that another planet, HD 85512 b, about
36 light-years away seemed to be in the habitable zone of its star.
The US space agency NASA confirmed its first such planet late last year,
Kepler 22b, about 600 light-years away.
Source: AFP
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