Andrew Peterson

Entry 3
Newfound Frozen World Orbits in Binary Star System

By: Whitney Clavin

Published: July 3, 2014

http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/news/binary-stars-20140703/index.html#.U7nA6ZRX-uY

This article was explaining the research of a newly found planet in a binary star
solar system which is about 3,000 light-years away from earth. This planet orbits just
about the same distant from its sun, that we do from ours, 1 AU, and it is potentially
habitable. Because the host star of that planet is much dimmer than ours, it is icyer than
Europa, Jupiters icy moon. This study shows that Earth-like planets are out there and
we just have to find them. Even though that planet is too icy for most living beings, it is
called a habitable zone, the region where conditions might be right for life. The
technique that astronomer use to find planets like these is called gravitational
microlensing. There are several different projects working on this technique right now in
hopes to perfect it because it is so complicated.

I think that is such a phenomenal find because it just opened so many doors into
the idea that there really are Earth-like planets and solar systems out there. I find it
fascinating that we can observe such far away planets well enough to understand that
they could contain life. Gravitational microlensing seems quite complex, but it think what
scientists observe is how its gravity affects light from a more distant, unrelated star. I
also didnt know that there were binary solar systems and that each of the stars have
different planets orbiting them even though the stars are really quite close,
comparatively. I feel like we are just going to keep finding new Earth-like planets all of
the place and, hopefully, get to explore them with more detail.