A team of astronomers has made two discoveries: a super-Earth
sitting a mere 42 light years away at just the right temperature
for liquid water -- and a creative new way to look for such
exoplanets. The super-Earth, HD 40307-g, is one of three
discovered around HD 40307, bringing the grand total of planets
around the dwarf star up to six. It lies in what’s known as the
habitable zone, where liquid water -- a required ingredient for
life -- could exist. At seven Earth masses, it’s likely hefty
enough to have an atmosphere, said study co-author Hugh Jones, a
University of Hertfordshire astronomer. And it’s far enough away
from its star that it should rotate freely, giving it a proper
night and day. The research, released Wednesday by the journal
Astronomy & Astrophysics, used a novel technique to analyze
existing measurements of a nearby star -- one that looks only at
the “red” half of a star’s light and ignores the “blue” half.
"The real exciting result was they were able to take data from
the archive, which w