An multinational team of scientists, including academics from Penn State University, has made a big discovery: they have found a possible “super-Earth” that is fewer than 20 light-years away from our globe.
Scientists have found a new exoplanet called GJ 251 c. It is thought to be about four times the mass of Earth and made of rock, which makes it a good candidate for investigations of habitability.
The research team says that the planet lies in the “Goldilocks Zone,” which is the habitable zone because it is close to its host star. This means that if the planet has the right atmosphere, liquid water might be present.
A Good Candidate for Life Outside of Earth
The discovery gives new hope to the quest for planets like Earth that might be able to support life. GJ 251 c is a super-Earth, which means it is bigger than Earth but smaller than gas giants like Neptune. This is because of its size and location.
Suvrath Mahadevan, the Verne M. Willaman Professor of Astronomy at Penn State and one of the study’s authors, said, “We look for these kinds of planets because they are our best chance at finding life elsewhere.” The study was published on October 23 in The Astronomical Journal.
Mahadevan said, “The exoplanet is in the habitable or ‘Goldilocks Zone,’ which means that it is the right distance from its star for liquid water to be able to exist on its surface.”
How GJ 251 c Was Found
The Habitable-Zone Planet Finder (HPF), a high-precision, near-infrared spectrograph linked to the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at the McDonald Observatory in Texas, found the exoplanet.
The HPF was made by researchers at Penn State and is meant to find Earth-like planets that circle stars close to us and potentially have life on them. It took more than 20 years of observations to find GJ 251 c.
Mahadevan added, “We call it the Habitable Zone Planet Finder because we are looking for worlds that are at the right distance from their star for liquid water to be on their surface.” “This discovery is one of the best candidates for finding the atmospheric signature of life elsewhere in the next five to ten years.”
Why the Find Is Important
Scientists stress that finding stony planets in adjacent solar systems greatly raises the possibility of getting a close look at their atmospheres and surface conditions. Because GJ 251 c is close to Earth, future space telescopes might be able to look at its makeup and look for biosignatures, which are indicators of life.
Astronomers have been working on sophisticated telescopes and computer models for decades to pick up weak signals from other stars. They want to find out if we are alone in the cosmos, which is one of the major issues we have.
Scientists are one step closer to finding out what GJ 251 c is.