Zarmina's World - A Goldilocks Planet Almost Within Reach

Plenty of planets have been discovered over the years and there have been false hopes before. But no one is crying wolf this time.

A Goldilocks planet has been discovered and it sits right in the habitable zone – it has the proper size, surface and atmospheric components that make it a good candidate for colonization.

It’s neither too hot or too cold – which is where the Goldilocks reference comes into play. The researchers believe that the average surface temperature of the planet is between -24 and 10 degrees Fahrenheit (-31 to -12 degrees Celsius). Actual temperatures would range from searingly hot on the side facing the star to freezing on the dark side. 

That’s the other thing. Because the planet has such a fast orbital period (37 days), half of it is in perpetual daylight. The sun is always shining – and on the other end of the spectrum – the night is always glooming. On a purely speculative level, if there are living beings on this planet, the ones living in the dark probably aren’t all that pretty.

While the presence of water hasn’t been confirmed yet, it is likely. And so is the presence of life.

The Goldilocks planet’s discoverers used the the HIRES spectrometer on the W.M. Keck Observatory’s Keck I optical telescope, a ground-based telescope located in Hawaii. They made observations over the course of 11 years… and their conclusion? Co-discoverer R. Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington said it best: "This really is the first Goldilocks planet.”

The thing that interests me the most about Zarmina’s World is the fact that it’s 120 trillion miles away – which is in our backyard, galactically speaking. That means that in about three generations of human life, we can travel there – which may be technically possible.

I could see someone like Richard Branson taking on this project…