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8h ago

Nearby Super‑Earth Candidate GJ 3378 b Reclassified as Likely Rocky World

Lowered mass places the 21.45‑day planet inside its star's habitable zone, prompting urgent follow‑up to test whether it retains an atmosphere.

Artist's conception of the view from the surface of the habitable-zone super-Earth exoplanet GJ 3378b. The planet has a minimum mass just over twice that of Earth and orbits its star at a distance that causes it to receive almost the same amount of starlight as Earth does. The planet joins a growing population of potential hosts for life in the nearby universe. Nikolai Berman / UC Irvine
A rocky planet rendered in deep space, representing a rocky super-Earth in the habitable zone.
Potentially Habitable Super-Earth Found Just 25 Light-Years Away
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Overview

  • A joint analysis of precision radial‑velocity data from HPF, NEID, SPIRou and CARMENES revised GJ 3378 b’s minimum mass to about 2.3 Earth masses and its orbital period to 21.45 days.
  • The new solution places the planet roughly 25 light‑years away well inside the star’s conservative liquid‑water habitable zone, where it receives about 90 percent of the radiation Earth gets from the Sun.
  • The lower mass moves GJ 3378 b from the borderline for mini‑Neptunes into the range where rocky super‑Earths are more likely, though mass alone does not prove a solid surface.
  • GJ 3378 b does not transit its star, so its radius and density are unmeasured, and it sits near the ‘cosmic shoreline’ where red‑dwarf flares and winds can erode atmospheres, leaving habitability unresolved.
  • Because the planet is nearby and now more likely to be rocky, astronomers say it should be a high‑priority target for next‑generation direct imaging and high‑contrast spectroscopy to search for an atmosphere and potential biosignatures.