Earth Like Planet Discovered?
It’s coming from an odd source, so I don’t know how accurate it is. And the planet described lacks certain features that make our world habitable (like a moon that keeps the atmosphere from getting too thick). But this is still a great find if its true.
An international team of astronomers from Switzerland, France and Portugal have discovered the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date.
The planet has a radius only 50 percent larger than Earth and is very likely to contain liquid water on its surface.
The research team used the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO’s) 3.6-m telescope to discover the super-Earth, which has a mass about five times that of the Earth and orbits a red dwarf already known to harbour a Neptune-mass planet.
Astronomers believe there is a strong possibility in the presence of a third planet with a mass about eight times that of the Earth in the system.
However, unlike our Earth, this planet takes only 13 days to complete one orbit round its star. It is also 14 times closer to its star than the Earth is from the Sun.
However, since its host star, the red dwarf Gliese 581, is smaller and colder than the Sun - and thus less luminous - the planet lies in the habitable zone, the region around a star where water could be liquid!
One important requirement for habitability is often missed (as it has been with Mars)--a magnetic field.
Yes, we can terraform Mars, in many ways, but life will never thrive there until we have the power to give it a magnetic field. I assume we’ll eventually have that power, but I feel it’s a long, long way off.Posted by on 04/24 at 10:00 PMThat’s probably one of the reasons life never took off there. (As far as we know).
We don’t know if this planet has one or not, or a moon. But the gravity would be intense considering how large it is.
Posted by on 04/24 at 10:24 PM
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