Existence may exist on one of the latest planets to be found outside the solar system in 2010. Gliese 581, a small red star about 20 light years away from Earth, has been a prime target for planet seekers for the last 11 years. With the announcement Wednesday of the finding of Gliese 581g, their hunch appears to be confirmed as the world seems to reside at a distance from its sun where factors may have developed to sustain existence called the “Goldilocks zone”.
Make our route to find the Goldilocks zone
Gliese 581g was a new world found in 2010 and announced by R. Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institute of Washington and Steven S. Vogt of the University of California, Santa Cruz. As reported in the New York Times, Gliese (GLEE-za) 581g orbits Gliese 581, a dim red star, once every 37 days at a distance of about 14 million miles. Scientists say that is the sweet spot of the Goldilocks zone, where heat from the star isn’t too hot, not too cold, for water to exist in liquid form on the surface. Fliese 581g has chances that “are almost 100 percent” of having life on it. This is what Vogt said.
The reasons why life can exist on Gliese 581g
Gliese 581 is a star that is a hundred times brighter than the sun while being about a third the size of it that has Gliese 581g as one of six exoplanets orbiting it. . Gliese 581g orbits between those worlds although it is three times the size of earth. It is the first Goldilocks exoplanet to be found. It doesn’t appear to be like Earth. It’s star only has about half the planet facing it at any given time. Gliese 581g is like the moon as it is “tidally locked” in this way. On the Fahrenheit system, the planet is expected to have temperatures between negative 31 and 158 on the side that faces the sun. Somewhere in between permanent daylight and permanent night, which Vogt called “eco-longitudes,” some form of life could become established.
This year, planets are now being discovered
Gliese 581g was found using the radial-velocity, or “wobble,” technique. As explained within the Los Angeles Times, the wobble technique detects planets by measuring a barely discernible gravitational tug they give their star during orbit. The planet seekers made sure to make some brightness measurements. These showed that Gliese 581g was causing Gliese 581 to make some wobbles.
Articles cited
New York Times
nytimes.com/2010/09/30/science/space/30planet.html?_r=1 and ref=science
Scientific American
scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=habitable-exoplanet-gliese-581
Los Angeles times
latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-earth-like-planet,,7897054.story
