Extrasolar 'Super-Earth' Found

They say the benign temperatures on the planet mean any water there could exist in liquid form, and this raises the chances it could also harbour life.

“We have estimated that the mean temperature of this ‘super-Earth’ lies between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius, and water would thus be liquid,” explained Stephane Udry of the Geneva Observatory, lead author of the scientific paper reporting the result.

“Moreover, its radius should be only 1.5 times the Earth’s radius, and models predict that the planet should be either rocky - like our Earth - or covered with oceans.”

Though the planet is 14 times closer to its star, Gliese 581, than Earth is to our Sun, Gliese 581 is smaller and cooler, leaving the planet inside the system’s “habitable zone”. More info + a size comparison diagram at BBC News.

“Obviously this newly discovered planet and its companions in the Gliese 581 system will become prominent targets for missions like Esa’s Darwin and Nasa’s Terrestrial planet Finder when they fly in about a decade.”

ARTICLE [“New 'super-Earth’ found in space”] (BBC)

Update: Reading Amanda Congdon’s thoughts on this enlightened me to another, very critical fact about this discovery: that due to how close the planet is – just 20 light years – Earth-like planets are probably, statistically speaking, at least somewhat common. In our neighborhood of the galaxy anyway. And we’ll be hanging out in our neighborhood for a hot minute, so this is really good news.