A newfound alien world might be able to support life — and its - TopicsExpress



          

A newfound alien world might be able to support life — and its just a stones throw from Earth in the cosmic scheme of things. An international team of astronomers has discovered an exoplanet in the star Gliese 832s habitable zone — the just-right range of distances that could allow liquid water to exist on a worlds surface. The planet, known as Gliese 832c, lies just 16 light-years from Earth. (For perspective, the Milky Way galaxy is about 100,000 light-years wide; the closest star to Earth, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light-years away.) Gliese 832c is a super-Earth at least five times as massive as our planet, and it zips around its host star every 36 days. But that host star is a red dwarf thats much dimmer and cooler than our sun, so Gliese 832c receives about as much stellar energy as Earth does, despite orbiting much closer to its parent, researchers said.
Posted on: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 20:26:05 +0000

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