A recently discovered exoplanet only 25 light years away resembles our own planet a lot more than once thought.
The distant world, dubbed GJ 3378b, orbits inside the habitable zone of a red dwarf star — a type of star that is much smaller and cooler than our Sun — where temperatures are just right for liquid water to form on the surface.
But initially, its case for potentially supporting life beyond that looked grim. Astronomers suspected it was a rocky world, but its mass was at least five times more than Earth — or what astronomers called a “super-Earth.” Along with its incredible surface gravity, such a heavy world would possess a crushing atmosphere that would smother any chance of hosting life.
That no longer appears to be the case, however. In a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal, researchers from the University of California, Irvine, took a second look at the exoplanet, finding that it’s a much more manageable twice the mass of Earth. Combined with its proximity to our solar system, it’s one of the most tantalizing nearby candidates for potentially supporting life yet.
