New super-Earth found in habitable zone of nearby star
Astronomers have discovered a rocky exoplanet about twice Earth's size just 25 light-years away, orbiting in the habitable zone of its parent star, Gliese 3378. The planet, designated Gliese 3378b, orbits a red dwarf star in the northern constellation. An artist's conception from UC Irvine shows the view from the planet's surface, with its small, dim sun hanging in the sky.
What makes this exoplanet promising for habitability
Gliese 3378b sits in the so-called "Goldilocks zone" where temperatures could allow liquid water to exist on its surface. At roughly double Earth's size, it is classified as a super-Earth — a type of planet common in the galaxy but absent from our own solar system. Its proximity at just 25 light-years makes it an ideal target for follow-up observations by the James Webb Space Telescope and next-generation ground-based observatories.
Other major science developments this week
In separate developments, NASA's Perseverance rover found the most extensive evidence yet of complex organic molecules on Mars. Scientists also recovered ancient human DNA directly from the walls of a cave for the first time. And a 83-million-year-old titanosaur fossil from Antarctica rewrote the timeline of the continent's first dinosaur discoveries.