Newfound super-Earth planet might support life, scientists say! [View all]

[Better Believe It]

Newfound super-Earth might support life, scientists say
Potentially habitable planet detected in triple-star system just 22 light-years away
By Denise Chow
February 2, 2012

A potentially habitable alien planet — one that scientists say is the best candidate yet to harbor water, and possibly even life, on its surface — has been found around a nearby star.

The planet is located in the habitable zone of its host star, which is a narrow circumstellar region where temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist on the planet's surface.

"It's the holy grail of exoplanet research to find a planet around a star orbiting at the right distance so it's not too close where it would lose all its water and boil away, and not too far where it would all freeze," Steven Vogt, an astronomer at the University of California at Santa Cruz, told Space.com. "It's right smack in the habitable zone — there's no question or discussion about it. It's not on the edge, it's right in there."

An alien super-Earth

The researchers estimate that the planet, called GJ 667Cc, is at least 4.5 times as massive as Earth, which makes it a so-called super-Earth. It takes roughly 28 days to make one orbital lap around its parent star, which is located a mere 22 light-years away from Earth, in the constellation Scorpius (the Scorpion).

Read the full article at:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46237284/ns/technology_and_science-space/



Artwork shows the alien planet GJ 667Cc, which is located in what could well be the habitable zone of its parent sun in a triple-star system.