Now it has an "e"
SDC article: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/0 ... lanet.html
The lightest exoplanet yet discovered — only about twice the mass of Earth — has been detected, astronomers announced today.
"With only 1.9 Earth-masses, it is the least massive exoplanet ever detected and is, very likely, a rocky planet,"said Xavier Bonfils of Grenoble Observatory in France, a member of the team that made the discovery, which was announced at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom.
The planet was found in the famous system Gliese 581 and has been dubbed "Gliese 581 e." It was detected using the low-mass-exoplanet hunter HARPS spectrograph attached to the 3.6-metre ESO telescope at La Silla, Chile.
Measurements with the telescope also helped to refine the orbit of the new planet's solar system sibling, a planet called Gliese 581 d, placing it well within the habitable zone, where liquid water oceans could exist.
"The holy grail of current exoplanet research is the detection of a rocky, Earth-like planet in the 'habitable zone' — a region around the host star with the right conditions for water to be liquid on a planet's surface," said Michel Mayor from the Geneva Observatory, who led the European team that made the finding.
Planet Gliese 581 e orbits its host star — located only 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra — in just 3.15 days. Being so close to its host star, the planet is not in the habitable zone.
SDC article: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/0 ... lanet.html
The lightest exoplanet yet discovered — only about twice the mass of Earth — has been detected, astronomers announced today.
"With only 1.9 Earth-masses, it is the least massive exoplanet ever detected and is, very likely, a rocky planet,"said Xavier Bonfils of Grenoble Observatory in France, a member of the team that made the discovery, which was announced at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom.
The planet was found in the famous system Gliese 581 and has been dubbed "Gliese 581 e." It was detected using the low-mass-exoplanet hunter HARPS spectrograph attached to the 3.6-metre ESO telescope at La Silla, Chile.
Measurements with the telescope also helped to refine the orbit of the new planet's solar system sibling, a planet called Gliese 581 d, placing it well within the habitable zone, where liquid water oceans could exist.
"The holy grail of current exoplanet research is the detection of a rocky, Earth-like planet in the 'habitable zone' — a region around the host star with the right conditions for water to be liquid on a planet's surface," said Michel Mayor from the Geneva Observatory, who led the European team that made the finding.
Planet Gliese 581 e orbits its host star — located only 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra — in just 3.15 days. Being so close to its host star, the planet is not in the habitable zone.
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