Potentially liveable planet found just 11 light years away

[nitpicker]

http://www.dw.com/en/potentially-liveable-planet-found-just-11-light-years-away/a-41398407

Potentially liveable planet found just 11 light years away

(snip)
A group of European and South American astronomers announced on Wednesday that they had discovered a potentially habitable world at the "close" distance of just eleven light years outside our solar system.

According to the European Southern Observatory, planet Ross 128b has a mass similar to Earth and "its surface temperature could equally be close to that of Earth." This means that the planet could theoretically support liquid water, which is indispensable to terrestrial life. The average temperature is theorized to be between -60 and 20 degrees Celsius (-76 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit). Now, researchers have to find out if the planet has water, dioxygen or methane in its atmosphere.
(snip)

Ross 128b orbits a star within the constellation of Virgo, and of the thousands of exoplanets scientists have discovered, is one of only about 50 that could possibly support life.

Because the planet is 20 times closer to its sun than Earth is, a year only lasts 9.9 days, the Guardian newspaper reported. Unlike our sun, however, Ross 128b orbits a fainter red dwarf star, allowing close proximity without burning the planet to a crisp.

Ross 128b also has a clear advantage over the closest "Earth-like" world to our solar system, Proxima Centuari b. Although it is only 4.24 light years away, it orbits a much more active star that regularly emits gigantic stellar flares.

[FreakinBat]

1. With it that close, it'd be tidally locked.

[longship]

2. Very likely.

Apparently not necessarily a deal killer. Modeling shows that jet streams in an atmosphere could even out the temperatures so that day side would be cooler and night side would be warmer. At least that's what I've heard. There'd likely be helluva winds I would imagine.

M-dwarf stars are very interesting because the vast proportion of stars in the galaxy are of that type. Plus M-dwarf stars are extraordinarily long lived, on the order of a trillion years, maybe more. Every M-dwarf in the galaxy ever is still in its infancy. A good place to look for life in spite of likely tidally locked close-in planets.

[struggle4progress]

3. And it's only 260 million times as far away as the moon!

[NNadir]

4. Lets go there and open it up for oil exploration.

It will be good for the economy.