European astronomers announced Monday they’ve discovered 50 new planets, including 16 so-called Super-Earths, one of which is potentially habitable.
The existence of the exoplanets outside our solar system was reported at the Extreme Solar Systems meeting at Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park. Astronomers made the discovery using the High Accuracy Radical velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) telescope in Chile. Over the past eight years, that instrument has helped discover a total of 150 new planets.
Of special interest are the Super-Earths, which are larger than our planet, but not as big as “ice giant” planets like Neptune. In particular, one of the worlds, HD 85512 b, is estimated to have a mass of about 3.6 times that of the earth. That planet is also close enough to its star that liquid water, which is considered essential for life, may be present.
“The detection of HD 85512 b is far from the limit of HARPS and demonstrates the possibility of discovering other super-earths in the habitable zones around stars similar to the Sun,” says Michel Mayor of the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and the leader of the HARPS team, in a press release.
Officially discovered in August, HD 85512 b is about 35 light-years away in the constellation of Vela. The temperature on the planet has been estimated to be around 25 degrees Celcius or 77 degrees Fahrenheit, though astronomer Lisa Kaltanegger of the Max Planck Institute in Germany told The Associated Press the planet would be humid and reach temperatures of around 49 degrees Celcius or 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
Image courtesy of Flickr, Donkeyhotey