Life can be found on one of the latest planets to be discovered outside the solar system in 2010. World hunters have focused on a red dwarf star about 20 light years away called Gliese 581 which they suspected may offer a world similar to Earth. With the announcement Wednesday of the finding of Gliese 581g, their hunch seems to be confirmed as the planet seems to reside at a distance from its sun where conditions may have developed to support life called the “Goldilocks zone”.
Welcome to the Goldilocks zone
The new planet discovered in 2010, Gliese 581g, was announced by Steven S. Vogt of the University of California, Santa Cruz and R. Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. As reported within the NY Times, Gliese (GLEE-za) 581g orbits Gliese 581, a dim red star, once each and every 37 days at a distance of about 14 million miles. Scientists say that is the sweet spot of the Goldilocks zone, where heat from the star isn’t too hot, not too cold, for water to survive in liquid form on the surface. When asked about life on Gliese 581g, Vogt said the chances “are almost 100 percent.”.
Existence might be sustained by Gliese 581g
Gliese 581g is one of six known planets orbiting Gliese 581, a star about one-third the size and one-hundredth the brightness of the Sun. A report on two of the Gliese 581 planets comes from Scientific Americans. It says the Goldilocks zone has these two planets in it. Those worlds have Gliese 581g orbiting between them. It is known to be about three times as large as earth is. It is the first Goldilocks exoplanet to be found. But it’s not exactly Earthlike. The planet hunter’s suspect Gliese 581g is “tidally locked,” which means only one side faces its star, like the moon does to Earth. On the Fahrenheit system, the planet is expected to have temperatures between negative 31 and 158 on the side that faces the sun. Vogt explained that life could exist in the world. The only thing that would need to be worked with would be the “eco-longitudes” which is the permanent day and night on the planet.
What exoplanets in 2010 are discovered
The “wobbly,” technique, or radial velocity, was how Gliese 581g was found. The wobble technique allows scientists to measure a gravitational pull that planets give stars during orbit, reports the Los Angeles Times. The planet hunters made sure to make some brightness measurements. These showed that Gliese 581g was causing Gliese 581 to make some wobbles.
Information from
New York Times
nytimes.com/2010/09/30/science/space/30planet.html?_r=1 and ref=science
Scientific American
scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=habitable-exoplanet-gliese-581
Los Angeles times
latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-earth-like-planet,,7897054.story
