Was there a new planet found in the solar systom called gilease?
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Answer:
Gliese is an unfamiliar word because it is a German surname. Wilhelm Gliese was a German astronomer, best known for the Gliese Catalogue of Nearby Stars that he compiled.
The new planet is indeed near Earth in the sense it orbits one of the nearest 100 stars to us, but it is not in our Solar System.
The new planet was found on 23rd April 2007 by a team led by Stephane Udry of Geneva University, The observatory they used was high in the Chilean Andes, where good viewing conditions would be available.
It is 20.4 light years away in the constellation Libra. It is the 87th closest star system to us. Its star (a Red Dwarf) is too faint to be seen with the naked eye, however. Its magnitude is 11.56.
The planet is called Glese 581c. What is unusual about it, amongst the 237 planets we have found orbiting other stars is
a) it is a rocky terrestrial planet not a gas giant
b) it is in the habitable zone i.e. with a temperature range at which water would be a liquid not ice. This is felt to be essential if it is to harbour life.
c) it has a radius 1.5 times that of earth (and a mass 5 x earth), the smallest yet,
(d) It orbits very close to its star (as the star, a Red Dwarf, is much cooler than our Sun, the planet needs to be nearer in to be warm enough to be habitable) and its year is a mere 13 Earth days in length.
There are two other planets in the same stellar system, one even further in (Gliese 581 b) a Neptune-sized planet of 17 Earth masses found in 2005 and one further out (Gliese 581 d) a planet of 8 Earth masses found in 2007.
The big question marks are:
(a) it is big enough to retain an atmosphere but is it breathable by humans?
(b) does it actually have (a plentiful supply of) water?
(c) how would we get there? (our present fastest rockets available would take 300,000 years)
(d) is the planet gravitationally locked to ts star, such that the same side of it always faces the star?
Many of the questions people will inevitably ask can only be answered when we can send an unmanned probe there. Meanwhile other planets will be found even nearer to us. (We know of a planet 10.5 light years away around Epsilon Eridani (the 9th nearest star) and 3 around Gliese 876, 15 light years away.)
One promising aspect of Gliese 581 is that it is both younger than our Sun (4.3 billion years) and it will outlive the Sun as it burns its hydrogen fuel up more slowly, so any colony we might one day establish there would not have to up sticks and be on the move again for a long time.
However a propulsion method that would get colonists there in less than half a human lifetime would need to be developed first, before colonisation is practical. And the practical problems of transporting enough fuel, food, water and air, for a crew of ten or more would need to be solved too. No easy undertaking!
No..it's not called Gilease either. They did, however fine a planet with some letter like a T and a few numbers in its name that it similar to earth way beyond Pluto in a close galaxy. It has a similar temperature to earth and is believed to have water and plant life.
Gliese 581 is 20 light years away, that is not exactly close, and that is definitely NOT in our solar system.
Since we have not even gone to Mars yet, and that is only 12 light *minutes*, any plans for potential colonization will have to wait a while.
What makes Gliese 581 interesting is that the planet around it is the right distance from its star that the temperature could compare to the one we have here on Earth. But given that the presence of the planet was only determined because of vibrations in the star caused by the orbit of the planet, we have no idea what its composition is. And no picture is available, this is far beyond the capacity of our best telescopes.
Gliese 581 c goes around a star, Gliese 581, that is 20.4 lightyears away. The name comes from Wilhelm Gliese of Heidelberg Observatory, who drew up a catalog of stars near the Solar System. The planet is the first one discovered to have a temperature range suitable for Earth life (32 F to 10F/0-40C). No one knows if it has a suitable atmosphere.
Unbelievable how much misinformation propagates on the internet. This "new" planet is not in our solar system. Its temperature is NOT known. The only claim made for it is that its distance from its parent star is such that it MIGHT have a moderate temperature.
Gliese 581 is a star. There is a planet orbiting it that is believed to be able to sustain human life. Since it is 20 light years away nor NASA, nor ESA, nor any other govermental or private company is planing to colonise it
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