Super Earth

Discovery Of A New World
On February 2, 2012, astronomers found yet another planet. Although it's not that big of news to find a new planet as astronomers do so regularly, the story behind this one can be skewed to be exciting. What's special about this planet is the fact that it resides within its star's habitable zone, the region in which the energy output would be enough to maintain life, but not so much as to scold it.

This planet has been titled GJ 667Cc. Really this title is nothing spectacular, just another label for identifying the planet. It orbits a red dwarf located roughly 22 light-years from the Sun. That's pretty far. There's no way in which we could reach this planet, so in all reality for all practical purposes the discovery of this planet means next to nothing for the average person. To astronomers, however, it's the beginning of a series of new discoveries to come. The search for extraterrestrial life and habitable environments is an ongoing cause. This is because it is vital for humans to evolve beyond the Earth or we'll be consumed by our star's death. Of course, this is not going to happen any time soon; however, if humans do survive that long it'll gradually become a pressing issue if we haven't already conquered it.

In all reality, there's a lot of hype for next to nothing. Astronomers can only make speculations at this time. They don't know the actual composition of the planet, whether it is rocky with an atmosphere or just an iron sphere with some gasses. All they can do is say if. If the planet is rocky with an atmosphere, it could retain liquid water and potentially life. The only fairly certain things that they can say about the planet is "If it has an atmosphere, it's probably reddsh all the time because the star is really red. It would be like being evening all the time." (Anglada-Escude)

The only thing we have from any of this data is speculation. Possible cases which we have determined by different solar environment conditions. And because we've never traveled to another solar system or even planet for that matter, we cannot say for certain anything. So why do scientists get so excited over things like this? Typically it's because it would represent something we didn't know before. In this specific case it's because it begins the discovery of many habitable-zone planets as previously we could almost only search for planets very close to the sun. Now, with our constantly improving technology, we're able to detect planets further and further away from their host star.

The search for a suitable extrasolar destination is only just beginning and is bound to become very interesting over the next several decades. You know they say Space is the final frontier.