An external squad of scientists working atEuropean HARPShave announced the uncovering of a large rocky major planet domiciliate within the stellar inhabitable zone of the red dwarf whiz Gliese 163 . That increases the bit of know potentially habitable planet to six — the legal age of which have been come across in the past year .
To intimately sympathize the implication of the discovery , we touch Abel Méndez , an Associate Professor of Physics and Astrobiology in thePlanetary Habitability Laboratoryat the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo . Méndez order us that the sensing of Earth - like worlds is pacing up — and that there ’s belike a lot more to come . “ There are more observation tower dedicated to these types of search , “ he told io9 , “ and many of them now have the required sensitivity to find these potentially habitable major planet . ”
Considered a superterran , or “ A-one - world ” , the exoplanet is being called Gliese 163c . Located at the reasonable length of 50 light days from Earth in the Dorado constellation , it is no smaller than 6.9 Earth mess and requires only 26 day to revolve its virtuoso .
That said , the HARPS uranologist speculate that Gliese 163c might be importantly smaller , about 1.8 to 2.3 Earth radii — but that will depend on subsequent analysis to detect its composing , most notably its rock music and piss contentedness . It also receives on fair about 40 % more lighter from its parent star than the Sun , do it considerably hotter than Earth .
Méndez and the rest of the squad at HARPS are n’t sure what the atm is like , but they mistrust that it ’s a scale up version of Earth ’s — give it a surface temperature around 60 ° coke . Most organisms on Earth can not withstand temperatures above 50 ° C , but we know of many form of extremophilic microbic life var. can thrive at those temperatures or in high spirits .
Gliese 163c is now the sixth potentially habitable planet catalogue by Méndez , a leaning that let in four that orbit a ruddy nanus ( Gliese 581d , Gliese 667Cc , Gliese 581 g , and now Gliese 163c ) , one around a K - Star ( HD 85512 ) , and one around a Sun - like superstar ( Kepler-22b ) . Méndez told us that upwards of 40 % of red dwarf stars may have habitable planets . “ Gliese 163c is now part of this statistic , ” he said , “ but there should be many more hold back to be see . ”
That say , Méndez believes it still qualifies as an authoritative physical object of inquiry as far as exobiology is concerned . “ Gliese 163c ranks fifth in our current tilt of six potentially habitable exoplanets because it is nearly twice the size of Earth and its temperature is also high , ” he told io9 , “ but it ’s still an objective of interest for the search of biosignatures by future lookout station . ”
Gliese 163c was discovered by the European HARPS squad leave by Xavier Bonfils from the UJF - Grenoble / CNRS - INSU , Institut de Planétologie et d’Astrophysique of Grenoble , France . The paper is not yet available online , but the authors say it ’ll be available to the general public in about two weeks . The title of the newspaper is “ The HARPS hunting for southern additional - solar planets⋆ XXXX . A planetary system around the nearby M dwarf GJ 163 , with a super - worldly concern in the inhabitable zona . ” It was defer to the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics .
We will update this page once the report has been posted online .
All images via PHL @ UPR Arecibo .
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