Habitable planet identified in another solar system

For the first time, astronomers have detected a rocky planet in another solar system that has the most basic and essential conditions needed to support extraterrestrial life.

The presence of Earth-like exoplanets in what is called the “habitable zone” has been predicted for some time, but actually identifying and measuring one was referred to Wednesday as the beginning of a new era in the search for life beyond Earth.

“This is our first Goldilocks planet – just the right size and the right distance from its sun,” said astronomer and “planet-hunter” Paul Butler with the Carnegie Institution of Washington. “A threshold has been reached.”

The planet, called Gliese 581G, is quite close at 20 light years from Earth’s solar system. It is considered to be in the habitable zone because of its distance from its sun and its size.

Together, those two measurements tell scientists that any water on the planet will be in liquid form, and that the planet is large enough to have the gravitational pull to hold an atmosphere around it.

Butler and colleague Steven Vogt of the University of California at Santa Cruz said their discovery, which was published in the Astrophysical Journal and was pieced together by collecting data over 11 years, does not mean that life necessarily exists on the planet. Rather, they said, the basic conditions are present to allow it to begin and keep it going. And from their research, they strongly believe similar conditions are present in many other solar systems.

“This is clearly one of the most exciting areas of science these days,” said Edward Seidel of the National Science Foundation, which has helped support Butler’s work for almost 25 years.

Adding to the significance of the discovery, the star Gliese 581 is now known to have six and perhaps seven planets orbiting it. And unlike most distant solar systems detected so far, the planets all orbit in a circular path and are lined up by type in a way similar to our solar system.

“As we collect more data, we can see the system looks like our own – with an inner clutch of rocky, terrestrial planets and then a big loner like Jupiter further out,” Vogt said.

It is significantly different, however, because the central sun is an M dwarf, a star with only 1 percent of the power that comes off Earth’s sun. All the planets in the system are closer to their sun than the Earth is to its sun.