People of the belief that there is life on other planets will be thrilled to learn of scientists’ discovery of the first habitable planet outside our solar system.
The ‘exoplanet’ Gliese 581d meets key requirements for sustaining life similar to what we have on earth, such as rainfall and watery oceans. It orbits a red-dwarf star also called Gliese 581 on the fringes of what is known as the ‘Goldilocks zone’ where the temperature is not so hot that water boils away and not so cold that is always frozen.
Whether humans would ever want to live there is another matter entirely, however.
*Science jargon alert*
Gravity is twice what it is on earth, meaning that anyone standing on the surface would weigh double their actual weight, while breathing would be difficult in an atmosphere that is dense with carbon dioxide.
The light Gliese 581d receives from its star equates to about 30 per cent of the intensity of sunlight on earth and while that may seem too cold to support liquid water, the amount of greenhouse gases produced in the atmosphere heats the planet significantly.
The planet is referred to as a ‘super Earth’ as its mass is 5.6 times greater than Earth itself, while it is also said to be ‘tidally locked’, meaning that one side of it always faces the sun and would be constantly subject to light, while the other side of the planet would exist in permanent darkness.
Disappointing as all those revelations are, it is still a pretty big deal for scientists, as Gliese 581d had previously been ruled out as a habitable planet.
Unfortunately, the chances of humans colonising the planet or going there for a nice getaway in the future appear extremely remote. Gliese 581d is 20 light years away and going by current calculations, it would take over 500,000 years to get there. Oh well.
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