{"id":438068,"date":"2026-01-28T06:36:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T06:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/438068\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T06:36:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T06:36:15","slug":"university-of-southern-queensland-astronomer-discovers-potentially-habitable-planet-candidate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/438068\/","title":{"rendered":"University of Southern Queensland astronomer discovers ‘potentially habitable’ planet candidate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian astronomers have led an international study that has discovered a candidate for a “potentially habitable” Earth-sized planet within our galaxy.<\/p>\n

Researchers from the University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ), as well as Harvard University and the University of Oxford, published the discovery<\/a> in the Astrophysical Journal Letters on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The planet candidate, dubbed Planet HD 137010 b, is 150 light-years away and is about 6 per cent larger than Earth.<\/p>\n

It is referred to as a “planet candidate” in the paper because it requires at least one more observation to confirm it as a planet.<\/p>\n

UniSQ researcher Chelsea Huang, one of the paper’s 10 authors, said the discovery was a “really exciting” kind of exoplanet \u2014 a planet that orbits a star outside our solar system.<\/p>\n

\"an<\/p>\n

Chelsea Huang was Alex Venner’s PhD supervisor and co-author of the paper. (Supplied: UniSQ)<\/p>\n

“Since the discovery of the first exoplanet 30 years ago, we’ve always tried to find Earth’s twin,” Dr Huang said.<\/p>\n

“We haven’t found that yet. But we are a step closer.”<\/p>\n

The researchers describe the planet as “where Earth meets Mars” because of its similar size to Earth, and the distance to its host star is comparable to the distance between Mars and the Sun.<\/p>\n

What does ‘potentially habitable’ mean?<\/p>\n

Lead author Alex Venner said there was a 50 per cent chance that Planet HD 137010 b was habitable.<\/p>\n

“The definition of a habitable zone, which astronomers use, is the area around the star where water could exist in liquid form,” Dr Venner said.<\/p>\n

“This planet candidate is really at the limits of what we think might be possible in terms of potential habitability.”<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

An artist’s concept of Planet HD 137010 b. (Supplied: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/K.Miller)<\/p>\n

Whether the planet could have liquid water on its surface depends on its atmospheric conditions.<\/p>\n

Dr Huang said there was no way to tell with the current scope of technology.<\/p>\n

“We have to wait for the development of the next generation of instruments to tell us the mass of this planet,” she said.<\/p>\n

But there is no need to start packing the spaceship just yet.<\/p>\n

The other plausible scenario is the planet has a “snowball” climate of below minus 70 degrees Celsius, making it uninhabitable.<\/p>\n

Planet Hunter discovery<\/p>\n

The discovery of the planet came about due to the work of an online group of astronomy enthusiasts called the Planet Hunters, a citizen science project run by the University of Oxford.<\/p>\n

One of them was then-high school student Dr Venner, who was finishing his schooling in Wales.<\/p>\n

“At the heart of it was simply giving internet users an image [from NASA’s Kepler space mission] with this brightness of tone and asking them to point out parts where it dipped,” he said.<\/p>\n

That dip or “wink” indicated the possibility of a transiting planet.<\/p>\n

\"two<\/p>\n

Transit analysis shows a dip in visibility, indicating the possibility of an exoplanet. (Supplied: Venner et. al)<\/p>\n

Dr Venner’s love for astronomy led him to do a PhD in exoplanet research in 2022, halfway across the world in Toowoomba.<\/p>\n

“I went back to the observing notes from the Planet Hunters project to try and see if I could find anything that would be relevant,” Dr Venner said.<\/p>\n

“I noticed this one that looked very much like it could be an Earth-sized planet.”\"a<\/p>\n

Alex Venner led an international research team that discovered Planet 137010 b. (Supplied: UniSQ)<\/p>\n

After years of rigorous calculations, he has published his research, which has been noted by NASA.<\/a><\/p>\n

“It’s a really unique object that we have very few planet candidates that have similar physical parameters,” Dr Venner said.<\/p>\n

Further observation needed<\/p>\n

NASA Exoplanet Science Institute chief scientist Dr Jessie Christiansen said the discovery was “incredibly tantalising \u2026 but almost heartbreaking” because the research was based on a single transit.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

Dr Jessie Christiansen says more transits need to be seen before the discovery is confirmed. (Supplied: Jessie Christiansen)<\/p>\n

“The gold standard is three transits,” Dr Christiansen said.<\/p>\n

However, she said if there was indeed at least one more transit, Planet HD 137010 b would be the only confirmed rocky planet in the habitable zone of stars like the sun.<\/p>\n

“This would be unique,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think it’s going to revolutionise the field right now because there’s no way to confirm it, but it’s definitely cool and definitely exciting.”<\/p>\n

UniSQ professor Jonti Horner agreed with the findings of the research, but stressed caution around the term “potentially habitable”.<\/p>\n

“If you were observing the solar system from another star, you’d see three planets here that we’d consider to be potentially habitable \u2014 Venus, Earth, Mars \u2014 and only one of them is actually habitable,” Dr Horner said.<\/p>\n

But Dr Horner said this was a “tantalising sneak peek of what there is still to discover”.<\/p>\n

“This is exactly the kind of planet that everyone wants us to find,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian astronomers have led an international study that has discovered a candidate for a “potentially habitable” Earth-sized planet…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[181749,800,49,48,181750,8095,11031,307,181751,181752,66,306,181748],"class_list":["post-438068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-alex-venner","tag-astronomy","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chelsea-huang","tag-discovery","tag-exoplanet","tag-nasa","tag-planet-candidate","tag-planet-hd-137010-b","tag-science","tag-space","tag-university-of-southern-queensland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}