Astronomers have discovered another planet with the potential for life — this one a “super-Earth” and the leading contender in our intergalactic search for aliens.
“This is the most exciting exoplanet I’ve seen in the past decade,” Jason Dittmann, lead author of the study, said in a statement. The study will be published April 20 in Nature.
The planet, LHS 1140b, is currently orbiting a red dwarf star 40 light-years away. It’s larger and more massive than Earth and orbits about 10 times closer to its home star than we do to the sun. But LHS 1140b’s red dwarf star (named LHS 1140) is tinier and a lot cooler than our sun. This means that even though this “super-Earth” is orbiting much closer to its star, it’s only receiving about half as much sunlight as we do.
What’s more, the conditions of this red dwarf star are “particularly favorable,” as the star is very dim and no longer emits a ton of radiation, according to the European Southern Observatory.
To top it off, LHS 1140b was spotted in the habitable zone. This zone, sometimes called the Goldilocks zone, is the “just right” area of a solar system where water doesn’t freeze or evaporate — meaning it could possibly support life as we know it.
“We could hardly hope for a better target to perform one of the biggest quests in science — searching for evidence of life beyond Earth,” Dittmann said.
The past couple years have been a particularly rewarding era for anyone in the business of finding Goldilocks planets. Indeed, Zavier Delfosse and Xavier Bonfils, two members of the study’s team in France, described the recent era of exoplanet discovery as “remarkable.”
In February NASA announced the discovery of TRAPPIST-1, a system of seven Earth-like planets orbiting a Jupiter-size dwarf star 235 trillion miles from Earth. Three of the planets are in the Goldilocks zone, though all of the TRAPPIST-1 planets are believed to be rocky. TRAPPIST-1 remains the record-holder for the most Goldilocks planets discovered orbiting a star.
Also in February, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft found organic molecules on Ceres, a freezing cold, Texas-size dwarf planet that hangs out in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. While these molecules don’t necessarily mean living organisms, they’re considered the building blocks of life, leading astronomers to take a closer look at Ceres.
In August, scientists announced the discovery of Proxima b. This Earth-like planet is only 4 light-years away, making it our closest known celestial cousin.
And as recently as April 13, NASA announced that there might even be life on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons.
Next up, scientists will continue observing the newest super-Earth using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, in hopes of figuring out what kind of atmosphere the planet has, or if it even has one at all. Astronomers also are hoping they might spot other planets orbiting around LHS1140. Red dwarf stars usually have a few planets in their orbit, like TRAPPIST-1. So it’s possible there are more super-Earths near LHS1140b, but scientists just haven’t seen them yet.
And once ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope is completed in 2024, astronomers will get an even better look at all the potential alien worlds. So far, LHS1140b is our best bet.