Discovery of Three New ‘Super-Earths’ in the Habitable Zone

UW Astronomer Rory Barnes, along with a team of international collaborators, have just announced their discovery of three potentially-habitable ‘super-Earth’ planets orbiting the nearby GJ667C, a red dwarf star only 22 light years from Earth. While the star had previously been known to host two planets, these new observations bring the total number of confirmed planets in the system to six, with an unconfirmed seventh. “Instead of observing 10 stars to look for a single potentially habitable planet, we now know we can look at just one star and find several of them,” Barnes says.