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Data collected over 20 years and analysed for two suggests there’s a planet a mere 20 light years away that could host life as we know it.
Planet HD 20794d is six times as massive as Earth but apparently rocky enough for water to collect on its surface and at a suitable distance from its host star for the water to be liquid.
A new study led by Oxford's Michael Cretignier confirms the planet’s existence and orbit – which is elliptical but mostly in its star system’s “goldilocks zone”, meaning it’s neither so hot that surface water boils nor so cold it's all frozen.
The data Cretignier analysed was all from terrestrial telescopes in Chile, but HD 20794d is now expected to attract attention from space telescopes with interferometers to detect atmospheric biomarkers like methane and CO2 molecules that might indicate the presence of life.
The Times noted this week that it would take Voyager 1 – the most distant human-made object from Earth – eighteen thousand years to get to HD 20794d at current speeds.
