New Planet Discovered 2010

Published on September 30, 2010 by admin · No Comments

New Planet Discovered 2010 It might be a place that only a lichen or pond scum could love, but astronomers said Wednesday that they had found a very distant planet capable of harboring water on its surface, thus potentially making it a home for plant or animal life.Nobody from Earth will be visiting anytime soon The planet, which goes by the bumpy name of Gliese 581g, is orbiting a star about 20 light-years away in the constellation Libra.But if the finding is confirmed by other astronomers, the planet, which has three to four times the mass of Earth, would be the most Earthlike planet yet discovered, and the first to meet the criteria for being potentially habitable. Read full story hereThe planet is located 20 light years from Earth, yet is still very very similar to earth as far as living conditions go. 20 light years away seems extremely long to a normal human being, but in terms of astronomy, it really isn’t all that far. Gliese 581g has a mass approximately 3 1/2 times that of Earth, and it only takes 37 days to orbit its sun.