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New Technique Used to Spot Possible Super-Earth in Alpha Centauri s Habitable Zone

EVAN GOUGH, UNIVERSE TODAY 13 FEBRUARY 2021 Astronomers using a new technique may have not only found a super-Earth at a neighbouring star, but they may also have directly imaged it. And it could be nice and cozy in the habitable zone around Alpha Centauri.   It s much easier to see giant planets than Earth-size planets. No matter which detection method is being used, larger planets are simply a larger needle in the cosmic haystack. But overall, astronomers are very interested in planets that are similar to Earth. And finding them is much more difficult. We thought we d have to wait for the ultra-powerful telescopes currently being built before we could directly image exoplanets.

Scientists Have Potentially Discovered a New Life-supporting Planet

The search for life in space just took a big leap forward. Researchers working on the New Earths in the Alpha Centauri Region (NEAR) project, funded by entrepreneur Yuri Milner s Breakthrough Initiatives, have potentially discovered a new planet in the habitable zone of the nearby star Alpha Centauri A, located 4.37 light-years from Earth. Their report was published in the Nature Communications journal this week. In an image taken of the star via the European Southern Observatory s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, the team spotted a separate glowing object. They suspect it might be a planet one that s four to five times larger than Earth, or roughly the size of Neptune. It s located between one to two astronomical units (AU) from its star (one AU is the distance from the Earth to the sun), putting the planet in the habitable zone, where water might be able to form to support life.

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