Two 'Goldilocks Planets' Don't Really Exist

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Astronomers Disprove Claims that Two 'Goldilocks Planets' Might Support Life

Astronomers from The University of Texas at Austin and Penn State University have solved a mystery surrounding controversial signals coming from a dwarf star considered to be a prime target in the search for extraterrestrial life. The team has proven that the signals suspected to come from two planets orbiting the star at a distance where liquid water could potentially exist (so-called “Goldlicks planets,” whose orbits are just right), actually are coming from the star itself. The study will be published by the journal Science in its online Science Express issue today and in a future print edition of the journal.

"This result is exciting because it explains, for the first time, all the previous and somewhat conflicting observations of the intriguing dwarf star Gliese 581, a faint star with less mass than our Sun that is just 20 light years from Earth," said lead author Paul Robertson, a recent PhD graduate of The University of Texas at Austin. Robertson is now a postdoctoral fellow at Penn State.

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