Space & Astronomy

Earth-like planet more than just 'noise'

By T.K. Randall
March 8, 2015 ·  19 comments

Does planet GJ 581d exist or not ? Image Credit: PHL/UPR Arecibo/NASA Discovered in 2009, the planet GJ 581d was initially hailed as the first Earth-like extrasolar world to be located in its star's habitable zone, a factor that made it a prime candidate for finding life.

Not long afterwards however a separate study concluded that what the astronomer's had picked up was "stellar activity masquerading as planets" and that GJ 581d didn't actually exist at all. To confuse things even further, yet another study has now implied that the previous findings were wrong and that the planet really does exist."The existence (or not) of GJ 581d is significant because it was the first Earth-like planet discovered in the 'Goldilocks'-zone around another star and it is a benchmark case for the Doppler technique," said lead author Dr Guillem Anglada-Escudé.

"There are always discussions among scientists about the ways we interpret data but I'm confident that GJ 581d has been in orbit around Gliese 581 all along."

Source: UPI.com | Comments (19)

Tags: Extrasolar Planet, Exoplanet