The New "Goldielocks" Planet

The new planet is NOT TOO HOT, NOT TOO COLD, but JUSTTTT RIGHT for holding liquid water. After 11 years of observing a star, "a dim red-dwarf star in the constellation Libra that is just visible in amateur telescopes" (Boston Globe), astronomers from the Carnegie Institution of Washington discovers 6 circling planets. Of these 6, the "Goldielocks" Planet is the one that could possibly sustain LIFE AS WE KNOW IT.

The Boston Globe states:

"Gliese 581g, as it is named, is a super-Earth with three or four times Earth’s mass, probably 1.2 to 1.5 times Earth’s diameter, and gravity that would be strong enough to exhaust you after a few steps but not strong enough to crush you to a puddle. There’s no way to tell, however, whether Gliese 581g actually has water or an atmosphere that might be way too thick or thin, or even a solid surface. Yet.

We do know some things. The planet orbits the dim star so closely that one side must be gravitationally locked to face the star in permanent day, while the other side faces away in permanent night. At any given location on the day side, a big, orange sun looms at the same spot in the sky motionless, changeless, forever, going on 4 billion years now. Depending on how thick the atmosphere (if any) may be and how well it transports heat, the temperature difference between the day and night sides could be mild or extreme."

 Only 20 light years away, this recent discovery gives hope of finding MORE potentially habitable planets. Perhaps George Lucas' fantasy of the intergalactic world is more true than we could have ever imagined.