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<\/a><\/p>\nAn artist\u2019s conception of the view from the surface of Gliese 3378b. Image credit: Nikolai Berman \/ UC Irvine.<\/p>\n
Gliese 3378<\/a>, also known as GJ 3378, LHS 1805 or TIC 322347050, is a red dwarf star located 25 light-years away in the northern constellation of Camelopardalis.<\/p>\n The newfound planet, Gliese 3378b, has a mass about 2.3 times that of Earth and an orbital period of 21.45 days.<\/p>\n It sits inside its host star\u2019s habitable zone \u2014 the \u2018goldilocks\u2019 region around a star where a planet receives just the right amount of solar radiation such that water can exist in a liquid state on a planet\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n \u201cAbout 70% of stars in our galaxy are red dwarfs, so they represent the standard,\u201d said Dr. Michael Endl, an astronomer at the University of Texas, Austin.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really important that we understand the planet population around these stars.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis one\u2019s exciting,\u201d said Dr. Paul Robertson, an astronomer at the University of California, Irvine.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s one of our closest cosmic neighbors. 25 light-years sounds like a long way, but the Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years across, so in that respect it\u2019s our next-door neighbor.\u201d<\/p>\n To learn about Gliese 3378b, Dr. Endl, Dr. Robertson and their colleagues used the Habitable-zone Planet Finder instrument on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory in Texas, and the NEID Spectrometer on the WIYN Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona.<\/p>\n \u201cThis super-Earth gets about 90% of the radiation from its host star as Earth gets from the Sun, so it\u2019s right in the sweet spot,\u201d Dr. Robertson said.<\/p>\n One lingering mystery is the nature of Gliese 3378b\u2019s atmosphere \u2014 or if it even has an atmosphere.<\/p>\n