Exciting news today! Astronomers have discovered a planet outside of our solar system, orbiting a red dwarf star 120 trillion miles away from earth, which may prove to be be habitable. This may be the needle in the haystack we've been looking for. Welcome Gliese Planet 581 c.
The red dwarf star, Gliese 581, which this planet orbits, is much smaller than our sun, cooler and dimmer, but may still prove to be enough to support life on this nearby planet discovered by astronomers at the European Southern Observatory in La Sille, Chile. Using a 3.6 meter telescope and a technique called radial velocity, they detected a "wobble" in the stars observed frequencies which indicate the presence of an orbital body.
From the data they can gather based on their observations, they have determined the orbital rate, an that the planet is either a rocky planet like earth, or a large icy body. More study is required to know for sure whether or not this planet is in fact habitable.
The planet has a 13 day orbit around its star, which is about 28 times shorter than the 365 days it takes for earth to orbit the sun. That means if you were 30 earth years old and lived on Gliese Planet 581 c, you be approximately 840 years old.
So you see, age is just a number!!!!
The red dwarf star, Gliese 581, which this planet orbits, is much smaller than our sun, cooler and dimmer, but may still prove to be enough to support life on this nearby planet discovered by astronomers at the European Southern Observatory in La Sille, Chile. Using a 3.6 meter telescope and a technique called radial velocity, they detected a "wobble" in the stars observed frequencies which indicate the presence of an orbital body.
From the data they can gather based on their observations, they have determined the orbital rate, an that the planet is either a rocky planet like earth, or a large icy body. More study is required to know for sure whether or not this planet is in fact habitable.
The planet has a 13 day orbit around its star, which is about 28 times shorter than the 365 days it takes for earth to orbit the sun. That means if you were 30 earth years old and lived on Gliese Planet 581 c, you be approximately 840 years old.
So you see, age is just a number!!!!
2 comments:
Very un-rajen like post !
have to look 'smart' a bit sometimes.. :)
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