Exciting Super Earth Discovery Hailed As Prime Real Estate For Alien Life
GJ 251 c is estimated to be nearly four times as massive as Earth but is thought to be a rocky planet. Critically, the planet resides within the Goldilocks Zone, i.e. the orbital region around a star where temperatures are just right for liquid water to exist on a planet's surface (provided it has the proper atmosphere). The planet completes an orbit around its host star, GJ 251, in about 54 Earth days.
"We look for these types of planets because they are our best chance at finding life elsewhere," explained Suvrath Mahadevan, a professor of astronomy at Penn State and co-author on the paper detailing the discovery. According to Mahadevan and his colleagues, the discovery was the result of analysis combining more than 20 years of observational data from various telescopes worldwide, looking specifically for a slight gravitational "wobble" in GJ 251's light caused by the orbiting planet's pull.
While current instruments cannot yet directly image or confirm the presence of an atmosphere around GJ 251 c, its relatively close distance— 18.2 light-years away in the constellation of Gemini—makes it a prime contender for upcoming astronomical tech.
Mahadevan believes the discovery represents one of the "best candidates in the search for atmospheric signature of life elsewhere in the next five to ten years". Next-generation instruments, such as the planned Habitable Worlds Observatory or 30-meter-class ground-based telescopes, are expected to have the capability to analyze the reflected light from GJ 251 c and therefore potentially reveal chemical biosignatures that would be the first true evidence of extraterrestrial life.
