A world away, two planets somewhat like Earth

By Faye Flam
Inquirer Staff Writer

The most Earth-sized planet and the most temperate planet known beyond our solar system both circle a dim red star 21 light-years away. These discoveries, announced yesterday at a meeting in England, moved astronomers a step closer to their dreams of finding other planets capable of supporting life as we understand it.
Since 1995, scientists have found more than 350 planets orbiting other stars, but most suffer from the same problems that make our neighbors in the solar system so inhospitable.
Many of the so-called extrasolar planets orbit so close that their stars would sterilize their surfaces. Others are jumbo "gas giants," like Jupiter, and therefore unlikely to have solid surfaces.
Astronomers suspect that Earthlike planets are out there but that they are nearly impossible to detect with current technology.
This latest finding came from a Swiss and French team working at the European Southern Observatory in Chile. They announced this latest finding at an international conference at the University of Hertfordshire, in conjunction with the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science.
For the last four years, the team has been studying this relatively nearby solar system, called Gliese 581, named after Wilhelm Gliese, who cataloged this and other nearby stars. It now appears to have four planets. Read More.....