Newly Discovered Planet Best Candidate for Life

An artist's conception of the alien planet GJ 667Cc, which is located in the habitable zone of its parent star. Image Credit: Carnegie Institution for Science

A new planet discovered in a triple-star system is now being called the best candidate for the possibility of harboring life. Its temperature range is not too hot to boil water and not too cold to freeze it. Its also just right around the corner, in space terms that is.

Scientists say that the planet, named GJ 667Cc, is very likely to have standing liquid water, and thus it is very possible that it harbors life. Astronomer Steve Vogt, of the University of California, told Space.com: “The planet is around one star in a triple-star system. The other stars are pretty far away, but they would look pretty nice in the sky.”

“This is basically our next-door neighbor,” Vogt explained. “It’s very nearby. There are only about 100 stars closer to us than this one.”

Vogt and his colleagues with the Carnegie Institution for Science have focused their efforts on examining nearby solar systems. He says Kepler discoveries are typically thousands of light-years away, whereas GJ 667Cc is only 22 light-years away. By focusing on closer solar systems, Vogt says “with today’s technology, we could send a robotic probe out there, and within a few hundred years, it could be sending back picture postcards.”

Astronomers say another reason this discovery is significant is that the chemical makeup of the GJ 667C solar system is not believed to be the kind to create planets. This means that there are a wider variety of star systems capable of hosting planets than previously thought.

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