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Tech

New-Earth Hunting...in Infrared!

Imagining a living planet adapted to infrared light in kinda fun.

Meet GJ 667Cc. GJ 667Cc is what’s known as a “Super-Earth,” a planet outside of our solar system (extrasolar) with a mass larger than Earth’s, but smaller than our solar system’s neighborhood gas giants. GJ 667Cc has a year that lasts a little less than a month (28.15 days) and is just over four times the size of Earth. It orbits a red dwarf star known as GJ 667C, which is a bit cooler and smaller than our Sun, itself a yellow dwarf. Because GJ 667C, actually part of a three star system, has a pretty different makeup than the Sun’s, it shines mostly in the infrared spectrum, rather than the visible.

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In short, GJ 667Cc is nothing like Earth. But, according to a new paper to be published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, this super-Earth is our current best bet for potentially habitable planets.

Read the rest at Motherboard.