Skip to main content

Astronomers find a livable planet 12 light-years from earth

If the Curiosity Rover is proving a little too slow to find life on Mars for your liking, here’s something to distract you – and, perhaps, give you some hope for the future: Scientists have discovered five potential planets orbiting a star they believe is similar to our sun … and one of those planets may be able to support water on its surface.

The star in question is Tau Ceti, only 12 light-years from Earth and visible to the naked eye. The planets surrounding the star are estimated to be two to six times bigger than earth, with one in particular measuring five times the size of our home planet. Said planet is lying in what’s commonly known as the star’s “Goldilocks Zone” – a position that is neither too hot nor too cold, but instead exactly the right environment to support the prospect of liquid surface water, and therefore, life.

It took information collated from more than 6,000 observations from three telescopes located in Hawaii, Chile, and Australia to discover the planetary system, believed to be the lowest-mass solar system detected yet. The system was discovered using a sensitive process known as the “radial velocity method,” which searches for a “wobble” in a star’s movement caused by the gravitational pull of orbiting planets. According to Professor Steve Vogt of the University of California at Santa Cruz, who is part of the research team responsible for the discovery, uncovering the planets “is in keeping with out emerging view that virtually every star has planets, and that the galaxy must have many such potentially habitable Earth-sized planets. They are everywhere, even right next door.”

Sure enough, upwards of 800 planets have been discovered since the 1990s, mostly close to stars similar to Tau Ceti or our own sun. Chris Tinney, a professor at the University of New South Wales and another member of the international team responsible for the discovery, suggested that that number may just be a small fraction of what’s really out there. “As we stare at the night sky, it is worth contemplating that there may well be more planets out there than there are stars, some fraction of which may well be habitable,” he said. R. Paul Butler of Washington state’s Carnegie Institution, also on the team, believes that the group’s new technique for discovering the planet will unlock “secrets of our nearest companion stars and their previously hidden reservoirs of potentially habitable planets.”

More information about Tau Ceti and its six planetary system appears in the catchily-titled “Habitable-zone super-Earth candidate in a six-planet system around the K2.5V star HD 40307,” a report written by the group that appears in the latest issue of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Editors' Recommendations

Graeme McMillan
Former Digital Trends Contributor
A transplant from the west coast of Scotland to the west coast of America, Graeme is a freelance writer with a taste for pop…
NASA teams with European counterparts to stop asteroids from hitting Earth
asteroid day asteroid hitting earth

If a massive asteroid ever hits Earth, the best-case scenario means a few problems getting to work that day.

The worst case, however, could include tsunamis, thermal radiation, wind blasts, seismic shaking, loss of sunlight, and possibly the end of all life on this planet.

Read more
NASA’s TESS satellite discovered three new planets right next-door
tess satelitte new planets nasa

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, affectionately called TESS, discovered three new worlds during its latest exploration.
The exoplanets are the smallest, nearest known to date and orbit a star that’s just 73 light-years away, which is pretty much just around the corner in cosmic terms, NASA and MIT announced Monday.
The star furthermost away also looks like it potentially supports some forms of life. Researchers say that the top of the planet’s atmosphere is within a temperature range that could potentially host some kind of lifeform; however, the planet’s atmosphere might make that feat impossible. Researchers say that the atmosphere is likely quite dense, which creates a “heat trap” on the planet’s surface, That ultimately might make it too hot to host water or life, at least the type of living organisms we know about.
Scientists are calling the new planetary system TOI-270 (catchy, right?). All three planets in the system appear to be relatively close in size, unlike the planets in our solar system. One is being described as a rocky super-Earth of sorts, while the other two planets more closely resemble Neptune in our solar system, although they’re half its size.
Astronomers think that they’ll be able to learn more about planetary formation from the planets, specifically whether our planet and more rocky planets like Neptune (which is similar to the planets found), follow the same formation path.
TESS has been able to discover more than 20 different planets during its first year of observations, including a number of planets that are unlike the ones found here in our solar system.
Developed by MIT, TESS satellite began operations in July 2018 and has focused on the southern skies for its first year of work. It's expected to observe the Northern Hemisphere over the next year 0r so.
"The pace and productivity of TESS in its first year of operations has far exceeded our most optimistic hopes for the mission," said George Ricker of MIT, TESS's principal investigator. "In addition to finding a diverse set of exoplanets, TESS has discovered a treasure trove of astrophysical phenomena, including thousands of violently variable stellar objects."
Findings from the satellite's first year in operation were published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Read more
Planet-hunting satellite discovers its first Earth-sized planet
tess first earth sized planet 198376 web 1

This is an artist's conception of HD 21749c, the first Earth-sized planet found by NASA's Transiting Exoplanets Survey Satellite (TESS), as well as its sibling, HD 21749b, a warm sub-Neptune-sized world. Illustration by Robin Dienel, courtesy of the Carnegie Institution for Science

NASA's planet hunting satellite, the Transiting Exoplanets Survey Satellite (TESS), has made a new discovery in the depths of space. Last month, TESS discovered its first exoplanet. And now it has achieved another milestone, locating its first Earth-sized planet and a larger sibling planet.

Read more