Wednesday, April 25, 2007

New planet looks like Earth

A team of European scientists have found a planet (Gliese 581c) 20 light years away that looks like it could be Earthlike.

From the New York Times:

The most exciting part of the find, Dr. Sasselov said, is that it “basically tells you these kinds of planets are very common.” Because they could stay geologically active for billions of years, he said he suspected that such planets could be even more congenial for life than Earth. Although the new planet is much closer to its star than Earth is to the Sun, the red dwarf Gliese 581 is only about a hundredth as luminous as the Sun. So seven million miles is a comfortable huddling distance.

Beam me up, Scotty!

Links:
NY Times
Yahoo
AOL

No comments: