Astronomers discover hot SUPER Earth Gliese 411b which could be home to alien life
Astronomers discover sixty new planets beyond our solar system and lots of them could be teeming with extra-terrestrial life
STARGAZERS searching for new planets have discovered a hot super-Earth with a rocky surface could be the next closest thing to Earth and might be teeming with alien life.
Scientists found Gliese 411b along with 60 new extrasolar planets orbiting stars close to Earth’s Solar System.
An international team of astronomers, including Dr Mikko Tuomi of the University of Hertfordshire also found further evidence of an additional 54 planets, bringing the potential discovery of new worlds to 114.
They say the planets are in our "immediate Solar neighbourhood" but that Gliese 411b is of particular interest.
A spokesman for the University of Hertfordshire wrote in a press release: "Gliese 411b is a hot super-Earth with a rocky surface located in the fourth nearest star system to the Sun, making it the third nearest planetary system to the Sun.
"The significance of its discovery demonstrates that virtually all the nearest stars to the Sun have planets orbiting them.
"Planets that could be like Earth."
The hunt for another Earth is hotting up, following the discovery of , an exo-planet in the "habitable zone" last year.
The means it orbits its star (Proxima Centauri) at a similar distance that the Earth orbits the Sun, possibly offering all the ingredients for life.
The 60 new planets were found over a 20 year period by US astronomers using the Keck-I telescope in Hawaii as part of the Lick-Carnegie Exoplanet Survey.
During that time the team obtained almost 61,000 individual observations of 1,600 stars. Dr Tuomi, who was the only European-based researcher workingon the project, led the group's data analysis efforts that revealed the existence of the newly reported planets.
Dr Tuomi said: "It is fascinating to think that when we look at the nearest stars, all of them appear to have planets orbiting them.
"This is something astronomers were not convinced about, even as little as five years ago.
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"These new planets also help us better understand the formation processes of planetary systems and provide interesting targets for future efforts to image the planets directly."
The group's results were based on measuring small periodic changes in the target stars' colours, indirectly revealing the existences of the planets.
They detected the signatures of planets using the iodine cell radial velocity technique.
While the lines of the star move very slightly in response to orbiting bodies like planets, the iodine lines do not move, providing a precise reference point.
This radial velocity method has been used to discover hundreds of new planets orbiting nearby stars, including the recent discovery of Proxima b orbiting the nearest star to the Sun, Proxima Centauri.
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