{"id":3028,"date":"2013-06-25T15:58:42","date_gmt":"2013-06-25T15:58:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=3028"},"modified":"2013-06-25T15:58:42","modified_gmt":"2013-06-25T15:58:42","slug":"three-planets-detected-in-habitable-zone-of-nearby-star-eso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=3028","title":{"rendered":"Three planets detected in habitable zone of nearby star &#8211; ESO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eso.org\/\" target=\"_d\">European Southern Observatory (ESO)<\/a> has released the results of\u00a0 a study of the star Gliese 667C showing that at least 6 planets orbit around it and that three of these are rocky planets (called &#8220;super-Earths because they are more massive than earth) within its habitable zone. (The planets are not seen directly but are detected via the Doppler variations in the light of the star as the planets pull it back and forth relative to us as they orbit around it.) This is the first time so many such planets have been seen within a habitable zone. Paul Gilster offers some analysis of the results:\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.centauri-dreams.org\/?p=28177\" target=\"_d\">Gliese 667C: Three Habitable Zone Planets &#8211; Centauri Dreams<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.eso.org\/public\/news\/eso1328\/\" target=\"_d\">Three Planets in Habitable Zone of Nearby Star<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A team of astronomers has combined new observations of Gliese 667C with existing data from HARPS [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.eso.org\/sci\/facilities\/lasilla\/instruments\/harps.html\" target=\"_blank\">High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher<\/a>] at ESO\u2019s 3.6-metre telescope in Chile, to reveal a system with at least six planets. A record-breaking three of these planets are super-Earths lying in the zone around the star where liquid water could exist, making them possible candidates for the presence of life. This is the first system found with a fully packed habitable zone.<\/p>\n<p>Gliese 667C is a very well-studied star. Just over one third of the mass of the Sun, it is part of a triple star system known as Gliese 667 (also referred to as GJ 667), 22 light-years away in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion). This is quite close to us \u2014 within the Sun\u2019s neighbourhood \u2014 and much closer than the star systems investigated using telescopes such as the planet-hunting Kepler space telescope.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jY97FrKHCfc?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>This video sequence shows an artist&#8217;s impression of the view from the exoplanet<br \/>\nGliese 667Cd looking towards the planet&#8217;s parent star (Gliese 667C). In the<br \/>\nbackground to the right the more distant stars in this triple system (Gliese 667A<br \/>\nand Gliese 667B) are visible and to the left in the sky one of the other planets, the<br \/>\nnewly discovered Gliese 667Ce, can be seen as a crescent. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Previous studies of Gliese 667C had found that the star hosts three planets (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.eso.org\/public\/news\/eso0939\/\">eso0939<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eso.org\/public\/news\/eso1214\/\">eso1214<\/a>) with one of them in the habitable zone. Now, a team of astronomers led by Guillem Anglada-Escud\u00e9 of the University of G\u00f6ttingen, Germany and Mikko Tuomi of the University of Hertfordshire, UK, has reexamined the system. They have added new HARPS observations, along with data from ESO&#8217;s Very Large Telescope,\u00a0the W.M. Keck Observatory and the Magellan Telescopes, to the already existing picture <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eso.org\/public\/news\/eso1328\/#1\">[1]<\/a>. The team has found evidence for up to seven planets around the star <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eso.org\/public\/news\/eso1328\/#2\">[2]<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>These planets orbit the third fainter star of a triple star system. Viewed from one of these newly found planets the two other suns would look like a pair of very bright stars visible in the daytime and at night they would provide as much illumination as the full Moon. The new planets completely fill up the habitable zone of Gliese 667C, as there are no more stable orbits in which a planet could exist at the right distance to it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>We knew that the star had three planets from previous studies, so we wanted to see whether there were any more,<\/em>\u201d says Tuomi. \u201c<em>By adding some new observations and revisiting existing data we were able to confirm these three and confidently reveal several more. Finding three low-mass planets in the star\u2019s habitable zone is very exciting!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Three of these planets are confirmed to be super-Earths \u2014 planets more massive than Earth, but less massive than planets like Uranus or Neptune \u2014 that are within their star\u2019s habitable zone, a thin shell around a star in which water may be present in liquid form if conditions are right. This is the first time that three such planets have been spotted orbiting in this zone in the same system <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eso.org\/public\/news\/eso1328\/#3\">[3]<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>The number of potentially habitable planets in our galaxy is much greater if we can expect to find several of them around each low-mass star \u2014 instead of looking at ten stars to look for a single potentially habitable planet, we now know we can look at just one star and find several of them,<\/em>\u201d adds co-author Rory Barnes (University of Washington, USA).<\/p>\n<p>Compact systems around Sun-like stars have been found to be abundant in the Milky Way. Around such stars, planets orbiting close to the parent star are very hot and are unlikely to be habitable. But this is not true for cooler and dimmer stars such as Gliese 667C. In this case the habitable zone lies entirely within an orbit the size of Mercury&#8217;s, much closer in than for our Sun. The Gliese 667C system is the first example of a system where such a low-mass star is seen to host several potentially rocky planets in the habitable zone.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/onAX9UE4aiw?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>This video shows the orbital motions of the planets around the star Gliese 667C.<br \/>\nThree of these planets are super-Earths orbiting in the habitable zone where liquid<br \/>\nwater may exist. The orbit of the planet Mercury in the Solar System is included for<br \/>\nscale. As Gliese 667C is fainter and cooler than the Sun the habitable zone is much<br \/>\ncloser to the star than in the Solar System.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The ESO scientist responsible for HARPS, Gaspare Lo Curto, remarks: \u201c<em>This exciting result was largely made possible by the power of HARPS and its associated software and it also underlines the value of the ESO archive. It is very good to also see several independent research groups exploiting this unique instrument and achieving the ultimate precision.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And Anglada-Escud\u00e9 concludes: \u201c<em>These new results highlight how valuable it can be to re-analyse data in this way and combine results from different teams on different telescopes.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.eso.org\/public\/news\/eso1328\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Continue for more details&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has released the results of\u00a0 a study of the star Gliese 667C showing that at least 6 planets orbit around it and that three of these are rocky planets (called &#8220;super-Earths because they are more massive than earth) within its habitable zone. (The planets are not seen directly but are &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=3028\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Three planets detected in habitable zone of nearby star &#8211; ESO<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy","category-exoplanets"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p34aWK-MQ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1728,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=1728","url_meta":{"origin":3028,"position":0},"title":"Kepler finds smallest exoplanets yet within the habitable zone of a star","author":"TopSpacer","date":"April 18, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The latest results from the Kepler observatory: NASA's Kepler Discovers its Smallest 'Habitable Zone' Planets to Date MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- NASA's Kepler mission has discovered two new planetary systems that include three super-Earth-size planets in the \"habitable zone,\" the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Astronomy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Astronomy","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"A diagram showing the planets found by Kepler in the ","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nasa.gov\/images\/content\/742730main_lineup-1-refl_673-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":24222,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=24222","url_meta":{"origin":3028,"position":1},"title":"ESO: Rocky exoplanet with half the mass of Venus detected with VLT","author":"TopSpacer","date":"August 5, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Latest report from the European Southern Observatory (ESO): New ESO observations show rocky exoplanet has just half the mass of Venus A team of astronomers have used the European Southern Observatory\u2019s Very Large Telescope (ESO\u2019s VLT) in Chile to shed new light on planets around a nearby star, L 98-59,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Astronomy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Astronomy","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/eso2112a1-500x293.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12567,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=12567","url_meta":{"origin":3028,"position":2},"title":"ESO: Three possibly habitable worlds observed in nearby dwarf star system","author":"TopSpacer","date":"May 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The latest report from ESO\u00a0(European Southern Observatory): Three Potentially Habitable Worlds Found Around Nearby Ultracool Dwarf Star Currently the best place to search for life beyond the Solar System Astronomers using the TRAPPIST telescope at ESO\u2019s La Silla Observatory have discovered three planets orbiting an ultracool dwarf star just 40\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Astronomy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Astronomy","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"eso1615a[1]","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/eso1615a1-300x123.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2256,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=2256","url_meta":{"origin":3028,"position":3},"title":"Planet Hunter citizen scientists confirmed exoplanet in star&#8217;s habitable zone","author":"TopSpacer","date":"May 12, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Earlier this year participants in the\u00a0Planet Hunters citizen science project confirmed with 99.9 percent confidence the discovery of a Jupiter-sized planet called PH2b orbiting within the \u201chabitable zone\u201d of its star, the range where earth-like planets could have liquid water and possibly sustain life. 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