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Web Snippet / First habitable planet outside solar system found
Filed in: Science and Technology
Tagged with website, social bookmark, link,planet, life, earth, habitable, European, astronomy, Garching, Germany, same size, similar, earth-like, Gliese 581, star
Last Modified Apr 24, 2007 at 11:28 PM PDT by VLeonovViewed 553 time(s)
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The first habitable planet similar in size and conditions to earth has been located in a distant solar system, a team of European astronomers announced on Wednesday at the European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany. The as-yet unnamed planet is only about one-and-a-half times the size of earth and five times more massive. One year lasts only 13 days on the planet.
The mean temperature of this super-earth lies between zero and 40 degrees Celsius. Water would thus be liquid on this planet. Models predict that the planet should be either rocky like our earth or covered with oceans. The planet is located around a star known as the Gliese 581, about 20.5 light years from earth's solar system and one of the 100 closest stars to the sun. Though the planet is much closer to its star than earth is to the sun, conditions are similar because the Gliese 581, known as a red dwarf, is smaller and colder.
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