NASA finds its first ‘super-Earth’ exoplanet with an atmosphere

Astronomers at NASA, working with the ESA and the University College London, announced Tuesday that they have discovered a "super-Earth" exoplanet with an atmosphere for the first time. The Hubble telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) first spotted...

On The Hunt For The Very Closest Alien Earths


Awash in a sea of long-lived stellar Red dwarfs, our own sun seems to be somewhat of a local anomaly. Until recently, detecting these faint M-spectral type stars — much less their potential...
    






Astronomers find three planets in Gliese 667C’s habitable zone

Astronomers find three planets in Gliese 667C's habitable zone

Astronomers have a good day when they detect one planet inside a star system's habitable zone. A mostly European team of researchers must be giddy, then, as it just found three of those ideally located planets around Gliese 667C. The group has combined existing observations from the ESO's Very Large Telescope with new HARPS telescope data to spot the trio of super-Earths, all of which could theoretically support liquid water. As long as the discovery holds up, it may have a big impact on exoplanetary research: it shows both that three super-Earths can exist in one system and that more than one survivable planet can orbit a low-mass star. We can only do so much with the findings when Gliese 667C is 22 light-years away, but it's good to learn that space could be more human-friendly than we once thought.

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Source: ESO

Kepler-62f and Kepler-62e Discovered the Most Earth-Like Alien Planet


NASA's Kepler space telescope has discovered about three exoplanets which will allow to sustain life, as well as at least one could very well be by far the most Earth-like alien world discovered up...
    


Potentially inhabitable super-Earth discovered in 6 planet solar system

Potentially inhabitable superEarth discovered in 6 planet solar system

When we do eventually reduce the Earth to an uninhabitable wasteland through our careless consumption of natural resources and inevitable nuclear wars, we'll need someplace else to go. We haven't picked a successor yet, but a new candidate has been identified a mere 44 light years away, orbiting dwarf star HD 40307. The super-Earth orbits its host star right at the edge of the so-called habitable zone, where a stable atmosphere and liquid water are possible. We don't know for sure the planet is, in fact, capable of supporting life, but there's at least a chance. And given that it's roughly seven-times the mass of Earth, it shouldn't have much trouble playing host to our exploding population.

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Potentially inhabitable super-Earth discovered in 6 planet solar system originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Nov 2012 10:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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