GLIESE 581D

By Anastasia Macovei

The scientists have discovered that only the planet GLIESE 581D is habitable from 550 planets around the stars. Gliese 581D has seven times more mass than the Earth and its location is 20 light years. It turns around the GLIESE star, a red star, which is more luminous than the Sun. It was discovered in 2007, but now we know that there are possibilities of life in this planet.

They discovered that the planet is in the habitable zone of the Universe. There, it receives energy from the star to keep liquid water on the surface. They are investigating if the life is possible in this planet, but they don’t know if the suitable conditions exist. With the help of the computing models, the scientists concluded that it is possible that the planet has coal dioxide, and that means, this planet can have water. The only thing they have to check is if the planet can keep the life in its surface and if this life can be microorganisms, because on the Earth the most simple life are the microorganisms.

All these investigations continue in the NASA and in the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.