Gliese 581 d (pronounced /ˈɡliːzə/) or Gl 581 d is an extrasolar planet approximately 20 light-years away in the constellation of Libra. Because of its mass, nearly 8 times that of Earth, the planet is classified as a super-Earth. In late April 2009, new observations by the original discovery team concluded that the planet is within the habitable zone where liquid water and, therefore, life could exist.
The planet was discovered by the team of St...
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Gliese 581 d (pronounced /ˈɡliːzə/) or Gl 581 d is an extrasolar planet approximately 20 light-years away in the constellation of Libra. Because of its mass, nearly 8 times that of Earth, the planet is classified as a super-Earth. In late April 2009, new observations by the original discovery team concluded that the planet is within the habitable zone where liquid water and, therefore, life could exist.
The planet was discovered by the team of Stéphane Udry of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland using the HARPS instrument on the European Southern Observatory 3.6 meter telescope in La Silla, Chile on 24 April 2007. Udry's team employed the radial velocity technique, in which the size and mass of a planet are determined based on the small perturbations it induces in its parent star’s orbit via gravity.
Dynamical simulations of the Gliese 581 system assuming that the orbits of the three planets are coplanar show that the system becomes unstable if the masses of the planets exceed 1.6 –...
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