Tag Archive for habitable zone

New planet discovered in habitable zone

from Reuters

By Chris Wickham

LONDON | Thu Nov 8, 2012 6:19am EST

(Reuters) – An Anglo-German team of astronomers has discovered a new planet orbiting a nearby sun at just the right distance for an Earth-like climate that could support life.

The team actually found three new planets orbiting the star 44 light years away, but only one of them is in the so-called Goldilocks Zone, the band around a sun where temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist. . . . Read Complete Report

Astronomers find new planet capable of supporting life (w/video)

Photo: The Milky Way CREDIT NASA SOURCE Public Domain

from The Telegraph (UK)

9:41AM BST 27 Apr 2012

The planet lies in what they describe as a ‘habitable zone‘, neither too near its sun to dry out or too far away which freezes it.

And the discovery could help answer the question of whether we are alone in the universe, which has been plagued astronomers and alien fanatics for years.

Scientists found the planet, Gliese 667Cc, orbiting around a red dwarf star, 22 light years away from the earth.

Red dwarf stars are the most common stars in the neighbourhood of the sun, usually hosting planets called gas giants, which are not composed of rock matter.

Re-analysing data from the European Southern Observatory, the astronomers found Gliese 667Cc is a solid planet with roughly four and a half times the mass of Earth. . . . Read Complete Report

from youtube

The definitive guide to the milky way galaxy

Uploaded by on Apr 10, 2011

The secrets of our home galaxy revealed with all new state oif the art computer recreations from JPL and NASA.