Latest Gliese Stories

Michael Harper for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Good news! The ESO’s HARPS telescope (or High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher) team has found a potentially habitable planet around the red dwarf star Gliese 163! This brings the number of known, potentially habitable planets to 6, most of which have been discovered in the past year. This rocky planet, called Gliese 163c, is considered a superterran, or super-Earth, and is a considerable 50 light years away from Earth,...

Scientists said on Monday that a rocky planet outside our solar system is the first to meet key requirements for sustaining life. Modeling of planet Gliese 581d shows that it has the potential to be warm and wet enough to nurture Earth-like life. The planet orbits on the outer fringes of the star's "Goldilocks zone," where it is not so hot that water boils away, nor so cold that water is perpetually frozen.  "With a dense carbon dioxide atmosphere -- a likely scenario on...

Researchers from the University of California (UC) Santa Cruz and the Carnegie Institution for Science have discovered a new, roughly Earth-sized planet that they believe could sustain life, representatives from both educational institutions announced on Wednesday.The investigative team discovered the new planet in a "habitable zone" (an area located at the right distance from a star in order to receive just enough stellar energy to maintain liquid water at or near the surface of...

"Boring" light from red dwarf star Gliese 581 means better odds for extraterrestrial life in that planetary system, according to University of British Columbia astronomer Jaymie Matthews.Approximately 20.5 light years from the Earth, Gliese 581 made the headlines in April 2007 when European scientists discovered a planet, named Gliese 581c. Dubbed "superEarth," the planet orbits Gliese 581 and could have water -- and thus able to support life. "The Gliese 581 system is the first...

Astrobiology Magazine -- In the land rush known as extrasolar planet hunting, the most prized real estate is advertised as "Earth-like." On Monday, June 13, scientists raced to plant their flag on a burning hunk of rock orbiting a red star. This newly discovered planet is about seven times the mass of Earth, and therefore the smallest extrasolar planet found to orbit a main sequence, or "dwarf" star (stars, like our sun, that burn hydrogen). There are even smaller planets...

Arlington, Va. - The world's preeminent planet hunters have discovered the most Earth-like extrasolar planet yet: a possibly rocky world about 7.5 times as massive as the Earth. This hot "super-Earth," just 15 light years away, travels in a nearly circular orbit only 2 million miles from its parent star, Gliese 876, and has a radius about twice that of Earth. All the nearly 150 extrasolar planets discovered to date that are orbiting normal stars have been larger than Uranus, an ice...

Arlington, Va. -- Taking a major step forward in the search for Earth-like planets beyond our own solar system, a team of astronomers has announced the discovery of the smallest extrasolar planet yet detected. About seven-and-a-half times as massive as Earth, with about twice the radius, it may be the first rocky planet ever found orbiting a normal star not much different from our Sun.All of the nearly 150 other extrasolar planets discovered to date around normal stars have been larger than...