Earthed

Planet....?

Are there any new updates on the planet that scientists suppose carries life?

Public Comments

1. Never heard anything about that...definitely would like to hear more about this.
2. It's going to take a while to accumulate enough data to say anything with any certainty.
   
   
   
   Doug
3. Try this address: www.nasa.gov
   
   Maybe you can find something there!
4. You and others have with repeated tellings, grossly exaggerated what the discoverers of this planet actually said.
   
   
   
   There is no way at 20 light years that we will ever know whether this new planet has life. It is simply in a zone in relation to its star in which there is some liklihood that conditions could possibly be right for life to develop (in other words, where water could be liquid).
   
   
   
   That is all. And that is all we will ever know as nobody can see this planet - it is only known by calculations of the effect it has on its host star.
   
   
   
   The kids have blown this up out of all proportion.
5. GLIESE 581c
   
   
   
   This newly-discovered planet where life is thought to be feasible orbits Gliese 581, one of the nearest 100 stars to us, 20.4 light years away.
   
   
   
   The new planet was found on 23rd April 2007 by a team led by Stephane Udry of Geneva University, The observatory they used was high in the Chilean Andes, where good viewing conditions would be available.
   
   
   
   Gliese 581 is in the constellation Libra. It is the 87th closest star system to us. Its star (a Red Dwarf) is too faint to be seen with the naked eye, however. Its magnitude is 11.56.
   
   
   
   What is unusual about Gliese 581c, amongst the 241 planets we have found orbiting other stars is
   
   
   
   a) it is a rocky terrestrial planet not a gas giant
   
   
   
   b) it is in the habitable zone i.e. with a temperature range at which water would be a liquid not ice. This is felt to be essential if it is to harbour life.
   
   
   
   c) it has a radius 1.5 times that of earth (and a mass 5 x earth), the smallest yet,
   
   
   
   (d) It orbits very close to its star (as the star, a Red Dwarf, is much cooler than our Sun, the planet needs to be nearer in to be warm enough to be habitable) and its year is a mere 13 Earth days in length.
   
   
   
   There are two other planets in the same stellar system, one even further in (Gliese 581 b) a Neptune-sized planet of 17 Earth masses found in 2005 and one further out (Gliese 581 d) a planet of 8 Earth masses found in 2007.
   
   
   
   The big question marks are:
   
   
   
   (a) it is big enough to retain an atmosphere but is it breathable by humans?
   
   
   
   (b) does it actually have (a plentiful supply of) water?
   
   
   
   (c) how would we get there? (our present fastest rockets available would take 300,000 years)
   
   
   
   (d) is the planet gravitationally locked to ts star, such that the same side of it always faces the star?
   
   
   
   Many of the questions people will inevitably ask can only be answered when we can send an unmanned probe there. Meanwhile other planets will be found even nearer to us. (We know of a planet 10.5 light years away around Epsilon Eridani (the 9th nearest star) and 3 around Gliese 876, 15 light years away.)
   
   
   
   Wilhelm Gliese was a German astronomer, best known for the Gliese Catalogue of Nearby Stars that he compiled.