Nearby planets are rare enough indeed, but nearby planets that might be habitable, those are even rarer. However, recently in a system just 40 light-years away, astronomers have discovered exactly that.
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00:00Nearby planets are rare enough indeed, but nearby planets that might be habitable, those
00:08are even rarer.
00:10However, recently in a system just 40 light years away, astronomers have discovered exactly
00:15that.
00:16The planet has now been dubbed Gliese 12b, and it's around the size of Earth.
00:20It also resides in the Goldilocks zone, around the red dwarf star it orbits, with experts
00:25saying planetary conditions would be temperate.
00:27That's a far cry from most planets we find out there in the cosmos, which usually include
00:31temperature extremes both high and low.
00:33We also generally find planets that are closer to the super-Earth size, or 2 to 10 times
00:38the size of our planet, yet smaller than planets like Neptune.
00:41The best news about the discovery of Gliese 12b is that it's close enough for further
00:46observations.
00:47Astronomers say the next step is to perform atmospheric transmission spectroscopy in an
00:51attempt to divine its atmospheric composition.
00:54This will tell us what elements are present there, like oxygen, and also whether or not
00:58the planet has water, two key hallmarks of habitability.
01:02Astronomers also hope to turn NASA's James Webb Space Telescope in its direction, giving
01:06us a proper view of our planet's possible interstellar twin.