New Super-Earth Planet Spurs Hope for Billions More
Astronomers have detected a rocky “super-Earth” planet orbiting a nearby star in a region where life could possibly exist, a finding that led one of the team from UC Santa Cruz to predict there must be billions more of them in the Milky Way.
The new-found planet is a big one, at least four and a half times as massive as Earth. It is 22 light-years from Earth,orbits its star every 28 days, and lies in the star’s “habitable zone,” where temperatures are just right - neither too hot nor too cold - for liquid water to support life on its surface.
Carnegie Institution for Science - An artist’s conception of the alien planet GJ 667Cc, which is located in the habitable zone of its parent star.