SuperEarth
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Astronomers find three planets in Gliese 667C's habitable zone
Astronomers have a good day when they detect one planet inside a star system's habitable zone. A mostly European team of researchers must be giddy, then, as it just found three of those ideally located planets around Gliese 667C. The group has combined existing observations from the ESO's Very Large Telescope with new HARPS telescope data to spot the trio of super-Earths, all of which could theoretically support liquid water. As long as the discovery holds up, it may have a big impact on exoplanetary research: it shows both that three super-Earths can exist in one system and that more than one survivable planet can orbit a low-mass star. We can only do so much with the findings when Gliese 667C is 22 light-years away, but it's good to learn that space could be more human-friendly than we once thought.
Alt-week 27.10.12: ancient texts, super-Earths and special-ops mice
Alt-week peels back the covers on some of the more curious sci-tech stories from the last seven days. If, like us, you struggle to read the front of the Corn Flakes box of a morning, you likely gave up any hope of cracking ancient codes long ago. If you didn't, however, then your time might be now -- as one of the oldest scripts know to man is still up for grabs. Prefer just to observe? No problem, as we've got super-Earth-searching satellites, military mice and vertical farms, all for your viewing reading pleasure. If you hadn't guessed already, this is alt-week
