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Habitable Planets for Man II

Via a mailing list: Universe Today reports on a newly-discovered Earth-like planet and its possibly watery companion.

Planet Gliese 581 e orbits its host star – located only 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra (“the Scales”) — in just 3.15 days.

“With only 1.9 Earth-masses, it is the least massive exoplanet ever detected and is, very likely, a rocky planet,” says co-author Xavier Bonfils from Grenoble Observatory. Being so close to its host star, the planet e is not in the habitable zone. But another planet in this system appears to be.

“Gliese 581 d is probably too massive to be made only of rocky material, but we can speculate that it is an icy planet that has migrated closer to the star,” added team member Stephane Udry. The new observations have revealed that this planet is in the habitable zone, where liquid water could exist. “‘d’ could even be covered by a large and deep ocean — it is the first serious ‘water world’ candidate,” he said.