Cool sun could host habitable planet

[Craig]

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/48530

An international team of scientists has discovered a potentially habitable super-Earth orbiting within the habitable zone of a cool star that is a member of a triple-star system. This discovery demonstrates that habitable planets could form in more varied environments than previously thought. This is the fourth exoplanet found within the habitable zone of a star – the first being Gliese 581d, which was discovered last May. Super-Earth planets are two to 10 times more massive than Earth.

Led by Guillem Anglada-Escudé and Paul Butler from the Carnegie Institution for Science in the US, the team studied public data released by the European Southern Observatory, as well as incorporating new measurements from the Keck Observatory's High Resolution Echelle Spectrograph and the new Carnegie Planet Finder Spectrograph at the Magellan II Telescope. The researchers were looking for stars with small "wobbles" in their orbit – a common marker for an exoplanet that is caused by the pull of the planet's gravity.