Spanish scientists announced the discovery of the smallest planet outside of our solar system Wednesday reports the Associated Press.
The new planet, GJ 436T, is located 30 light years from Earth. It was discovered by a team led by Ignasi Ribas through a technique observing the planet’s gravitational pull on other planets already discovered around the same star in the constellation of Leo.
This new technique “will allow us to discover in less than 10 years the first planet resembling earth in terms of mass and orbit,” said Ribas.
“GJ 436T” has a mass five times the size of Earth, which makes it the smallest extrasolar planet among the roughly 300 identified so far, Ribas said in announcing the discovery.
He said the new planet is uninhabitable due to the distance that separates it from its star, which is far less than that between the earth and the sun.
To sustain life, a planet must have a mass similar to that of earth, liquid water on its surface, an atmosphere and a similar orbital distance from its star as that of the earth from the sun.
Initial calculations by the team indicated that “GJ 436T” rotates in 4.2 earth days and orbits its star every 5.2 days.
That SHOULD say
“To sustain life [as we know it], a planet must have a mass similar to that of earth, liquid water on its surface, an atmosphere and a similar orbital distance from its star as that of the earth from the sun.”
Human arrogance at work again. No wonder no one drops by openly to say hello.
Well, let’s look at it this way: even if an alien life form has the same carbon/water biochemistry that we have, we’re still likely to have an extremely hard time communicating with it. If its basic requirements for existence are completely different from our own, we’re likely to have a hard time even recognizing it AS life, much less opening up a dialogue.
With so many planets in the galaxy, we have a better chance of making contact if we focus on ones that are at least somewhat like ours. To use Orson Scott Card’s terminology, we’d do better to try to contact Ramen than Verelse…
Jeremy, in practice, I agree with you; however, there are some examples where there is just no way anything recognizable as “life” could exist. As close as this planet is to its star, I’d tend to put this one into that category: heat, radiation, crazy magnetic conditions.
One thing life as we would recognize it would need is some level of stability to evolve from molecules into organisms. A planet this close to its parent star probably gets “sterilized” by radiation/geomagnetic storms every couple thousand years.
science mumbo jumbo aside….
we just cant be the only life forms out there.
I WANT TO MEET ALIENS!