First potentially habitable Earth like planet outside Solar System discovered

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Gliese 581

First habitable Earth like planet outside Solar System discovered
Munich, Apr 23 : An international team of astronomers from Switzerland, France and Portugal have discovered the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date.

The planet has a radius only 50 percent larger than Earth and is very likely to contain liquid water on its surface.

The research team used the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO’s) 3.6-m telescope to discover the super-Earth, which has a mass about five times that of the Earth and orbits a red dwarf already known to harbour a Neptune-mass planet.

Astronomers believe there is a strong possibility in the presence of a third planet with a mass about eight times that of the Earth in the system.

However, unlike our Earth, this planet takes only 13 days to complete one orbit round its star. It is also 14 times closer to its star than the Earth is from the Sun.

However, since its host star, the red dwarf Gliese 581, is smaller and colder than the Sun - and thus less luminous - the planet lies in the habitable zone, the region around a star where water could be liquid!

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Very neat.
Circling a red sun - a heavy gravity, habitable world where the sun is giant in the sky…. Sounds like Krypton.

Good thing we’ve discovered kryptonite

Better article at - http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1501AP_Habitable_Planet.html