New super-earth detected within the habitable zone of a nearby star
Thursday, February 2, 2012 - 10:31
in Astronomy & Space
(PhysOrg.com) -- An international team of scientists has discovered a potentially habitable super-Earth orbiting a nearby star. With an orbital period of about 28 days and a minimum mass 4.5 times that of the Earth, the planet orbits within the stars habitable zone, where temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist on the planets surface. The researchers found evidence of at least one and possibly two or three additional planets orbiting the star, which is about 22 light-years from Earth.