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A team of planet hunters from the University of California (UC) Santa Cruz and the Carnegie Institution has announced the discovery of a planet, Gliese 581g, with three times the mass of Earth orbiting a nearby star at a distance that places it squarely in the middle of the star’s “habitable zone.”
Planets of the Gliese 581 System: This artist's conception shows the inner four planets of the Gliese 581 system and their host star, a red dwarf star only 20 light years away from Earth. The large planet in the foreground is the newly discovered GJ 581g, which has a 37-day orbit right in the middle of the star's habitable zone and is only three to four times the mass of Earth, with a diameter 1.2 to 1.4 times that of Earth. (Lynette Cook)
Comparing the Gliese 581 to Our Solar System: The orbits of planets in the Gliese 581 system are compared to those of our own solar system. The Gliese 581 star has about 30% the mass of our sun, and the outermost planet is closer to its star than we are to the sun. The fourth planet, G, is a planet that could sustain life. (National Science Foundation/Zina Deretsky)
Nearly impossible, but not impossible perhaps. Some researchers think they've imaged a planet 25 light years away using hubble:
Originally posted by Nventual
If the hubble can view things billions of light years away how hard can it be to build the same sort of telescope but use it to see only a few light years away? It would be cheaper and a lot more helpful. Obviously it is possible.
"The ultimate goal is the direct imaging of Earth-like planets, so as to search for biosignature gases. This task will be very much harder, since such planets will not only be considerably smaller and dimmer, but also much closer to a sun-like star. Nevertheless, with this first giant step, it does not appear impossible."