A publication of Dr. Vogt, reports the discovery of an exo-planet orbiting the dwarf star Gliese581 which is around 20 light years from earth.
But this is not what is surprising. Since the first exo-planet discovered a decade ago, there are now approximately 500 known exo-planets.
What the publication emphasizes is that this new planet lies in the "goldilock zone" this zone is the distance between a planet and its star needed to find water in its three states. The distance not too far and not to near that makes a planet candidate to harvest life. The planet has aproximately 3 to 4 times the mass of Earth, this property gives the possibility to have ENOUGH gravity for an atmosphere.
Some facts that i liked about the note was that Gliese 581 g (the planet) always has one side facing its star and one facing darkness, so the scientist predict that in a region between both sides temperatures could be just right to give various life forms. "Any emerging life forms would have a wide range of stable climates to choose from and to evolve around, depending on their longitude," said Dr Vogt. The author also comments that the potentially habitable planets in the universe is around 10 - 20%, this number is staggering
and some questions arose to me while reading the note.
"We're at exactly that threshold now with finding habitable planets," said Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution, a co-author of the study......
if we were to someday reach this planets, would we suffer the same thing as the aliens of "war of the worlds"... die by microbes =)....
Does the fact of one side always facing the star mean that the planet does not rotate at all. Could the non rotating characteristic of the planet be the reason of the uncertain gravity to form an atmosphere? if so than how lucky we are the earth revolves at 1674 km per hour =0
Also observe the tittle of the entry.
