“most Earthlike planet yet found”
compared to Earth:
- it orbits a red dwarf star and likely contains liquid water
- 50% larger than Earth, and the smallest planet yet found outside the solar system
- 20.5 light-years away
- 14 times nearer to its star than Earth is to the sun, but still lies within the habitable zone of its solar system because red dwarfs are small and dim
- a year there lasts 13 days [not sure if that’s Earth-days or Gliese 581 c-days]
- gravity on the planet’s surface may be twice as strong as on Earth
- estimated surface temperature at between 32 and 104 degrees Fahrenheit [0 and 40 degrees Celsius, for you metric-heads]
- could feature familiar, rocky terrains or be completely covered with oceans [i.e. they have no idea]
Did you know? “New planets are being discovered every few weeks or so. The interesting development is when you start getting these lower-mass planets closer to [the weight] of the Earth.”—Michael Perryman of the European Space Agency’s Astrophysics Missions Division in the Netherlands
“We hope, and even expect, to have these habitable planets all over the place.”— Stephane Udry of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland [contrary to what I was told as a child that a habitable planet, such as Earth, was against the odds and basically impossible except for Earth]