Erstellt am: 1. 10. 2010 - 14:05 Uhr

Today's Webtip: Goldilocks?

a planet has been discovered that's not too hot, not too cold, but juuuuust right.

More extraterrestrial news. And this time it might not be a hoax.

Astronomers are reporting that they have identified an extrasolar planet that might be capable of harboring life. Well, water at least. It's probably not quite the pretty blue green planet of the artists renditions though:

That was Steven Vogt, one of the astronomers working on the team that identified the planet.

You can read more about it at National Geographic or any one of a number of other sites that have been posting about it.

Like io9. There is an excellent comment on that post which tries to explain the real meaning of this announcement, cutting through the hype copy and paste journalists have been putting out in their excitement.

Of course, this isn't the first time an anouncement like this has been made. 2 other planets in the same system were also candidates, until further research showed them to be on either side of the goldilocks zone. One was a bit too hot, and the other a bit too cold.

That video was from 2007. It turned out not to be quite what the astronomers had hoped.

And finally, since it's a bit lame to post about potentially habitable planets without some kind of fun speculation about the inhabitants. Here's a short example of what hollywood media scientists think the welcoming comittee might look like:

Artistic license doncha know.