The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast released a podcast on November 2, 2010 with some details on our newest find - the “Goldilocks” planet, Gliese 581g. What is unique about Goldilocks? It is a planet the size of Earth situated in about the same distance from its sun as we are to ours. To us, our place in the solar system seems normal. Our smaller planets are much closer to the sun and some of our bigger planets are positioned much farther off. But this is not usual in most solar systems, because of gravitational pull, larger planets are usually much closer to their suns. This has caused quite a bit of excitement in the Astronomy circuits. First, could it have life? Second, we are getting much better at detecting smaller planets in other galaxies - meaning we will probably find many more planets just like Earth in other solar systems.
However before we get too excited over whether Goldilocks could sustain life. Unlike our beautiful large yellow sun, Goldilocks orbits a red dwarf sun. Which is a small and relatively cool star. Could life still develop?
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