A newly discovered “super-Earth” planet could allow us to finally see alien life, researchers say.
The world – named GJ 251 c and lying less than 20 light years away – is thought to be a “super Earth”, a class of planets that are rocky worlds like our own but much bigger. Those planets are thought to be our best chance at finding alien life elsewhere.
What’s more, GJ 251 c is in the “Goldilocks Zone”, neither too close or too far from its Sun so that liquid water could exist on its surface. Scientists found it using the Habitable-Zone Planet Finder, a survey that looks for other worlds in that sweet spot.
Researchers believe that the world could be one of the most exciting prospects we have found in the search for alien life, scientists say.
It was found by scientists using more than 20 years of data, gathered from a wide array of telescopes, and looking g for the “wobble” of the planet’s host star. That slight movement is caused by the gravity from an orbiting planet.
First, they used the data to better understand a planet called GJ 251 b, which they already knew was in that system. But further examination suggested there was another, much more massive planet in that solar system, and later confirmed it was there.
Researchers are not able to directly see the planet. But they hope that future telescopes will give them enough power to be able to see the world itself.
“While we can’t yet confirm the presence of an atmosphere or life on GJ 251 c, the planet represents a promising target for future exploration,” said Suvrath Mahadevan, from Penn State and co-author on the new paper. “We made an exciting discovery, but there's still much more to learn about this planet.”
The work is described in a new paper, ‘Discovery of a nearby Habitable Zone Super-Earth Candidate Amenable to Direct Imaging’, published in The Astronomical Journal.
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