This time, scientists have come across some lurking Super-Earths located not very far from our own solar system.
It has long been believed that there are only seven planets in our neighboring solar system around star HD 10180, but that is wrong.
Astronomers have just made a very significant discovery revealing the existence of two more planets in the system.
Artistic impression of a Super-Earth. Image credit: David Aguilar
This finding is very important because most planetary systems discovered so far have far fewer planets.
Located 130 light years away, the star is not within reach of foreseeable human space travel, but in astronomical distances, it is still considered to be in the Solar neighborhood.
The two new planets discovered by Mikko Tuomi, an astronomer at the University of Hertfordshire are closer to the star's surface than the Earth is to the Sun.
This makes them too hot to be able to maintain water on their surfaces in its liquid form and life as we know it could not exist there.
The super-Earths have masses of 1.9 and 5.1 times that of our planet Earth which suggests that
they are solid rocky bodies and make them among the smallest planets outside of our Solar system detected to date.
An artist's conception of the planetary system around HD 10180. One of the new Super-Earth planets HD 10180j is seen in the foreground
(on the left hand side of the picture), with the nearby Neptune-like planet HD 10180e in the background (on the right-hand side of picture with blue cloudy atmosphere).
The central star and the other 7 planets can be seen in the distance, including the second new Super-Earth HD 10180i, third out from the central star.
Future observations are required to verify the existence of these planet candidates and to establish the HD 10180 star system as the richest planetary system known to humankind.
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MessageToEagle.com -
As some may recall, just a few months ago astronomers detected a
The super-Earth, named GJ 667Cc has the mass four and a half times that of our Earth and an orbit of 28.15 days.
The planet GJ 667Cc orbits a dwarf star of the class M, 22 light years away which corresponds to
approximately 209 trillion kilometers.
"These super-earth are good choice for the existence of liquid water and life, as it also occurs on
Earth, "says one of the lead investigator, Dr. Guillem Anglada-Escudé from the University of Goettingen, Germany.
