08/11/2012 12:14
Team of astronomers discovered super-Earth planet
By taking a fresh look at old data, an international team of astronomers has discovered a possible new super-Earth planet relatively nearby that could potentially hold liquid water, scientists said Wednesday.
The research, released by the journal Astonomy & Astrophysics, used a novel technique to analyze existing measurements of a nearby star. The paper drew some praise even as other experts in the field eyed the results with caution, the Los Angeles Times reports.
The finding adds three planet candidates around the dwarf star HD 40307 some 44 million light-years away, for a total of six. (Three planets were discovered around HD 40307 in 2008.) Five of the planets are clustered close in to the star, nearer than Mercury’s orbit around the Sun.