The new planet Gliese 581g contains Earthlike blues and greens

Roy Elal

7B

Due: 6/10/10

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/100930-new-planet-discovered-first-habitable-earthike-water-gliese-581g-science-goldilocks/

Today, for the summary of an article we had to make, I will be talking about a recently discovered planet, Gliese 581g (new Earthlike planet). As astronomers say, its the first Planet with all the conditions and features that a habitable planet needs. As far as scientists' research went so far, Gliese 581 is probably a rocky place that includes; an atmosphere, temperate regions (a variation of temperatures, but no extremes of hot or freezing cold,) and essentially, liquid water, which gives an even bigger chance for there to be life on the planet.

"this is really the first goldilocks planet" astronomet paul Butler. meaning not too hot, not too cold. "Just the right size and just the right distance (from it's star) to have liquid water on surface" claimed Butler (Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC.)

This lately discovered planet is placed about 20 light-years away from Earth (20 light years are 1.89210568 × 10 to the power of 17 meters.) Gliese 581 is one of the hundred closest stars to us, even though when you think, 'it's 20 light years away!! how is that so close to us?' well, if its one of the hundred closest stars to us, its very close, comparing to one of the planets farthest from us, and therefore, there are between 10 sextillion (10 with 21 zeros) to infinity stars in the universe.

Scientists found six planets orbiting the red dwarf, making Gliese 581g the center of the biggest known planetary classification outside our solar system. Planet Gliese 581c was claimed in 2007 as conceivably habitable, although after wards, it was recognized to orbit too close to the star (star as in their sun,) making the planet too hot for life. An additional star, or planet, Gliese 581d, is believed to orbit on the cold side of the habitable zone. While Gliese 581d could have life, but then, the planet would need a bulky atmosphere with a powerful greenhouse result to warm up to the period of habitability.

"They are very close to habitable, but not quite," Steve Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, stated during the conference. "This one (Gliese 581g) is right between the two, in the same system." Gliese 581g is approximately the size of three Earths, the recently discovered planet is tidally locked to its star, which means that one side is constantly in the daylight, while other side perpetually dark.

Intelligent life, or Aliens, if they are to exist, they are most likely to live in between the shadow and light, a temperate region known as the terminator, as i said before, a temperate region is a variation of temperatures, but no extremes of hot or freezing cold, as the scientists said. "Imagine the view from the terminator," Vogt said, "You basically see this star sitting on the horizon. You see an eternal sunrise or sunset, depending on whether you are an optimist or a pessimist." The Gliese 581g finding took scientists 11 years of examinations. The data let scientists to find the wobble in a star's orbit which brought about by the gravitational pull of an orbiting planet, a technique called radial velocity. "Given the relative ease of finding this planet, 10 to 20 percent of all stars may have potentially habitable planets." Vogt said in a press release.

"There could be tens of billions of these systems in our galaxy."

All-in-all, I think this article was very interesting! I mean, knowing that there's a chance for other intelligent beings to be other than us, on this planet Earth, everyone would be excited to know that! I learned a lot from this article, and it had so much information about this topic, I even used a little of it for my debate speech. :P

Bibliography:

Roach, John. "First Truly Habitable Planet Discovered, Experts Say." Daily Nature and Science News and Headlines | National Geographic News. 29 Sept. 2010. National Geographic News. 05 Oct. 2010 .