{"id":223380,"date":"2025-10-24T20:24:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T20:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/223380\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T20:24:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T20:24:09","slug":"astronomers-just-found-a-nearby-super-earth-that-could-have-the-right-conditions-for-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/223380\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers Just Found a Nearby Super-Earth That Could Have the Right Conditions for Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" <\/a>Illustration of Super-Earth GJ 251 c. Credit: University of California, Irvine.<\/p>\n

An international team of researchers has identified a strong candidate for a nearby, potentially rocky exoplanet orbiting within its star\u2019s temperate zone. The world, dubbed GJ 251 c, sits 19.6 light-years from Earth and appears to be almost four times our planet\u2019s mass \u2014 a \u201csuper-Earth\u201d that could, under the right atmospheric conditions, host liquid water.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe look for these types of planets because they are our best chance at finding life elsewhere,\u201d said Suvrath Mahadevan, the Verne M. Willaman Professor of Astronomy at Penn State and co-author of the study published in The Astronomical Journal<\/a>. \u201cThe exoplanet is in the habitable or the \u2018Goldilocks Zone,\u2019 the right distance from its star that liquid water could exist on its surface, if it has the right atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n

The find is the payoff from playing the long game. Over two decades of radial-velocity observations<\/a> \u2014 minuscule, periodic shifts in a star\u2019s light caused by an orbiting planet\u2019s tug \u2014 were stitched together and reanalyzed with help from two ultra-stable spectrographs with Penn State DNA: the Habitable-Zone Planet Finder<\/a> (HPF) on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope<\/a> in Texas and NEID<\/a> on the WIYN 3.5-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory<\/a> in Arizona.<\/p>\n

HPF, a high-precision near-infrared spectrograph, targets cool, nearby stars where Earth-size planets are easiest to tease out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe call it the Habitable Zone Planet Finder, because we are looking for worlds that are at the right distance from their star that liquid water could exist on their surface,\u201d Mahadevan said. \u201cThis has been the central goal of that survey. This discovery represents one of the best candidates in the search for atmospheric signature of life elsewhere in the next five to 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The host star, GJ 251, already had one previously known planet, GJ 251 b<\/a>, an inner world that loops the star every two weeks. By refining that earlier signal across a 20-year baseline, the team improved its model of the star\u2019s motion, then layered in HPF\u2019s high-precision measurements. <\/p>\n

A second, stronger periodicity popped out: A 54-day tug consistent with a larger companion, the newly identified GJ 251 c. NEID observations independently backed up the HPF-driven result.<\/p>\n

The murky divide<\/p>\n

GJ 251 c\u2019s mass places it in the murky divide where planets can be dense and rocky or veer into mini-Neptune territory with thick atmospheres. Because the planet orbits in the star\u2019s mild-temperature zone and is both close and bright by exoplanet standards, it vaults near the front of the line for future atmospheric studies. <\/p>\n

While today\u2019s telescopes can\u2019t snap a picture or sniff the air of GJ 251 c directly, the next wave of 30-meter-class ground-based observatories and upgraded instruments could change that equation, especially if the planet\u2019s atmosphere contains gases that betray biological or geological processes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis discovery is a great example of the power of multi-disciplinary research at Penn State,\u201d said Eric Ford, distinguished professor of astronomy and astrophysics and director of research for the university\u2019s Institute of Computational & Data Sciences. <\/p>\n

\u201cMitigating stellar activity noise required not just cutting-edge instrumentation and telescope access, but also customizing the data science methods for the specific needs of this star and combination of instruments.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, the case for GJ 251 c rests on its gravitational pull. If follow-up observations can pin down the planet\u2019s radius \u2014 such as via a lucky transit across the star\u2019s face or future imaging \u2014 astronomers could calculate its density and get a firmer handle on whether it\u2019s a true rocky super-Earth or something puffier<\/a>. Either way, its orbital period, mass, and location in the habitable zone make it a high-value target.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are always focused on the future,\u201d Mahadevan said. \u201cWhether that\u2019s making sure the next generation of students can engage in cutting-edge research or designing and building new technology to detect potentially habitable planets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mahadevan and students are already mapping out observation strategies for when new 30-meter-class telescopes come online. Instruments purpose-built to steady starlight and peel apart spectra could, at last, let scientists search GJ 251 c\u2019s skies for molecules like water vapor, oxygen, methane, or carbon dioxide. These are clues that can help tell a world\u2019s story, even from light-years away. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we can\u2019t yet confirm the presence of an atmosphere or life on GJ 251 c, the planet represents a promising target for future exploration,\u201d Mahadevan said. \u201cWe made an exciting discovery, but there\u2019s still much more to learn about this planet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Illustration of Super-Earth GJ 251 c. Credit: University of California, Irvine. An international team of researchers has identified…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[7849,59,90,95349,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-223380","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-exoplanet","9":"tag-gb","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-super-earth","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}