“ My own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent. ” — steven vogt
In the News
A little wobble
spurs hope for
finding life on
distant worlds
extrasolar planet is in the
right location to be habitable
story one
By Laura sanders
Scientistshave spottedan Earth doppelgänger that may have the right specs to harbor life, just 20 light-years distant in
the direction of the constellation Libra.
Although details about conditions
on the planet’s surface remain a mystery, the find suggests that many more
potentially habitable worlds are likely
to be found. The discovery was reported
online September 29 at arXiv.org and
will be described in an upcoming
Astrophysical Journal.
Finding the planet so nearby and so
soon after extrasolar planets were first
discovered suggests that the galaxy is
teeming with Earthlike worlds, said
coauthor Paul Butler of the Carnegie
Institution for Science in Washington,
D.C. He noted that it has been only 15
years since astronomers first located a
planet orbiting a sunlike star beyond the
solar system.
“This is the first one, but the threshold has now been crossed,” Butler said
in a September 29 press briefing. “Over
the next 10 years I would be shocked if
there weren’t many tens of these things.”
The body is one of two newly discov-
gliese 581 (upper left in this artist’s depiction) has six confirmed planets,
including one (foreground) that orbits the star at a distance hospitable to life.
ered planets orbiting the red dwarf star
Gliese 581 — setting the current record
at six for the most planets circling a star
other than the sun.
“It’s kind of a mini-version of our own
solar system,” said study coauthor Steven
Vogt of the University of California,
Santa Cruz.
Vogt and his colleagues used more
than 200 nights’ worth of data to track
tiny wobbles of Gliese 581 caused by
the gravitational tug of orbiting planets.
Astronomers can use these wobbles not
only to detect unseen planets, but also to
determine their masses and orbital paths.
The researchers found that the planet
Gliese 581g, estimated to be about three
times more massive than Earth, orbits
its star about once every 37 days. The
average surface temperature is estimated
to range from - 24 degrees to 10 degrees
Fahrenheit, but may vary greatly.
