A planet with conditions that could support life orbits a twin neighbour of the sun visible to the naked eye, scientists have revealed.
The world is one of five thought to be circling Tau Ceti, a star just 12 light years away that is almost identical to the sun.
Astronomers estimate the Tau Ceti planets to be two to six times bigger than Earth. One of them, with five times the Earth's mass, lies in the star's "habitable zone".
Also known as the "Goldilocks zone", this is the orbital region that is neither too hot nor too cold to allow liquid surface water and, potentially, life. Details of the discovery are to appear in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Planet orbiting in the habitable zone discovered just 12ly away
Awesome!
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5 comments:
It's the 20th closest star. One of our best options for life close by.
Still very fucking far away. Not impossible, but fucking far.
They also found a planet at Alpha Centauri already. It's not in the habitable zone, but where there's one planet there's probably more.
Should take about 40 years to reach if we use Orion.
How would we communicate on Alpha C. distance? Is that difficult? I have no idea how hard that would be. Maybe google can tell me...
Slowly? 4 years lag time to earth is a bitch, so just send monthly updates both ways to see what's going on on both sides. Responding to their last update 4 years ago.
And of course not with radio, lasers are probably a much more efficient way.
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