Earthlike Planet Orbiting Nearby Star

The Bad Astronomer writes "Astronomers in Europe have announced the discovery of a planet with only 5 times the Earth's mass, orbiting a red dwarf star 20 light years away. It orbits the star so closely that it only takes 13 days to go around... but the star is so cool that the temperature of the planet is between 0 and 40 Celsius. At this temperature there could be liquid water. Models indicate the planet is either rocky like the Earth or covered in an ocean. While it's not known if there actually is liquid water on the planet, this is a really big discovery, and indicates that we are getting ever closer to finding another Earth orbiting an alien star."

Comments

How long to get there?

[tentimestwenty]

20 light years. So that would take us 20 years to get there travelling at the speed of light, or slightly longer going not quite as fast?

Re:How long to get there?

[trentblase]

Only one man would give me the raspberry.

Re:Uninhabital new worlds

[AGMW]

Golden hamsters were exposed to conditions of 2.5 times normal gravity (hypergravity, HG) for 4 months.

I, for one, welcome our new High-G Golden Hamster overlords

[did I get that right?]