Not Too Hot, Not Too Cold - Have Scientists Finally Found The 'Goldilocks' Planet?
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It's not too hot, not too cold, not too large, not too small, not too far from its star, not too close . . . . . . In short, it is perfect, should we dare say it? To harbor life! At least that's the opinion of two smart astronomers - And many others seem to agree with them.
Discovered by Paul Butler from The Carnegie Institution of Washington and Steve Vogt from U.C. Santa Cruz, the Gliese 581G lies 20 light years or about 120 trillion miles away from Earth. It is about three and a half times the size of earth, slightly wider and seems to have both gravity and atmosphere.
However, there are stll many things that we don't know about the new planet. It is much closer to its star, Gliese 581 (no G!) - about 14 million miles away as opposed to the 93 million miles that lie between the Sun and our planet. But, the scientists believe that is not a problem, because the Gliese 581 is a dwarf star and hence, not as intense as our Sun.
Thanks to the shorter distance, the Gliese 581G takes only 37 days to orbit around the sun. However, unlike Earth, it doesn't rotate fully on its own axis, which means that half of the planet gets 24-hour sunlight and is probably very hot, while the other half, is always dark and freezing.
Also not known for sure, is if the Gliese 581G has any water or if the gas its atmospthere is made up of, is capable of supporting life.
The Gliese 581G is the sixth planet that has been discovered revolving around the dwarf star Gliese 581 and, is not the first to have created this kind of excitement. Not too long ago, scientists believed that Gliese 581C was perfect to sustain life, only to later discover that is was too hot.
Will Gliese 581G finally be the Holy Grail that scientists have been searching for many years? Who knows, but it is always fun to speculate and then imagine what kind of life lives on it. Of course, to the scientists, even a single-celled amoeba is evidence of life, but we are hoping it's a little more exciting than that!
sources: news.yahoo.com,csmonitor.com
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402 Comments
- Cooldawgalmost 14 yearsOnly problem is that it's so far away our bodies would adapt to the zero gee environment. If we entered atmosphere we would be crushed. That means we would have to build artificial gravity generators.
- cooldawgalmost 14 yearsthis is flipping awesome! we can get ready fo the earth explosion by building a new atmosphere over there and we get a new home full of new resources! yay!
- cool person67almost 14 yearsthat planet is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo cool! :)
- cuttiepie99almost 14 yearsthats cool!
- Michellealmost 14 yearsThis planet sounds really cool but how is it gonna get cooler if its so hot. I also don't like the idea of how its freezing and dark on one side mean-while hot and sunny on the other.
- Christianalmost 14 yearsI think that Gliese 581G could not support life with it's atmoshere and weather.The planet sounds amazing,like the fact of taking only 37 days to orbit around the sun. I would love to go to planet Gliese 581G!
- darcy smithabout 14 yearshey you guys! you have got to see this new planet it is so cool and its so amazing that we have a new planet
- darcy smithabout 14 yearsomg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! a new planet how cool i would go to that planet if i could and i would live my life there forever and ever
- Camsabout 14 yearsThis is really cool.......if Earth explodes, we can LIVE there!!!!!!!!! :)))))
- GURPREETabout 14 yearsif only there is oxygen we can live on it beacuse we saw the picture of the planet it had water and land and if there is water there might be living things on it. that's just really kool.
