Astronomers discover a habitable planet for humanity, here's how close it is to Earth

Astronomers from the University of California have made an incredibly exciting new discovery that gives new hope to the search for extraterrestrial life.

The newly discovered planet, called GJ 251 c, is a "Super-Earth" - it is rocky, has a mass much greater than Earth and - most importantly - is located exactly within the habitable zone of its star, that is, at that distance where temperatures allow the existence of liquid water on the surface.

The star it orbits is an M-type red dwarf, one of the most common and longest-lived types of stars in the Milky Way.

The distance? Just 18 light years, extremely close on a cosmic scale, making it one of the most accessible candidates for further study.

"Discovering new exoplanets is now almost routine," said Associate Professor Paul Robertson, "but GJ 251 c is special because its star is incredibly close to us. This makes it an ideal target for next-generation telescopes."

The planet was discovered thanks to small periodic fluctuations in the star's light, caused by the planet's gravitational pull, a technique called "radial velocity." The main instruments that picked up this signal were the Habitable-zone Planet Finder (HPF) and the NEID.

Despite the challenges (M-type stars are often turbulent and create signals that confuse measurements), the team is confident that GJ 251 c is a real planet.

In the near future, the University of California's Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) will be able to directly image this planet and eventually discover whether it actually has water or even signs of an atmosphere suitable for life.

According to Corey Beard, the lead author of the study: "Today it is almost impossible to take direct pictures of such planets with current telescopes, but with TMT we will be able to see GJ 251 c as a point of light near its star."

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