Astronomers discover a nearby Super-Earth that may harbor life 18ly away

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Astronomers discover a nearby Super-Earth that may harbor life
Researchers find Super-Earth that's just 18 light-years away
Stefan Milovanovic
Wed, November 26, 2025 at 10:00 AM EST
3 min read



At just 18 light-years away, GJ 251 c is close enough for future telescopes to image directly | ©Image Credit: Illustration by University of California Irvine


Astronomers have flagged a new planet in our cosmic neighborhood that hits several key habitability notes, and it’s close enough that future mega-telescopes might actually see it directly.

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine have identified GJ 251 c, a “super-Earth” orbiting in the habitable zone of a small, cool star just 18 light-years away. The zone is situated in a place where temperatures could allow liquid water on the surface, which is considered essential for every form of life currently known.

The planet appears rocky and several times more massive than Earth, placing it in the super-Earth category. It orbits an M-dwarf star, the most common type of star in the Milky Way and among the oldest.

“We have found so many exoplanets at this point that discovering a new one is not such a big deal,” said co-author Paul Robertson, associate professor of physics and astronomy at UC Irvine. “What makes this especially valuable is that its host star is close by, at just about 18 light-years away. Cosmically speaking, it’s practically next door.”


Spotting a Planet Through Stellar Interference

What’s interesting to note is that GJ 251 c doesn’t orbit a calm, sunlike star — its host is an active M-dwarf, prone to starspots and flares that can mimic the very signals astronomers look for when they’re trying to detect planets. These variations can make it hard to tell whether a small, regular “wobble” in starlight is coming from a planet or just the star’s own behavior.

To tease out the signal, the team used two ultra-precise instruments: the Habitable-zone Planet Finder (HPF) and NEID, both designed to spot tiny changes in a star’s light caused by orbiting planets. As GJ 251 c pulls on its star, it produces small, periodic shifts in the star’s light known as radial velocity signatures. HPF measured those shifts and helped confirm that something planetary is there.

Because HPF works in the infrared, it also reduces some of the noise from the star’s activity, which is especially useful for M-dwarfs.

The team’s models reached strong statistical confidence, enough to classify GJ 251 c as an exoplanet candidate. But they’re clear that the next step is to directly image the planet to confirm its status.


Next Step: Seeing the Planet Directly

The Super-Earth sits at exactly the kind of distance where planned giant telescopes could make a real difference, and the University of California’s Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), now under development, is expected to have the resolution needed to directly image faint planets like GJ 251 c — something current, smaller telescopes can’t do.

“TMT will be the only telescope with sufficient resolution to image exoplanets like this one. It’s just not possible with smaller telescopes,” said lead author Corey Beard, now a data scientist at Design West Technologies and a former graduate student in Robertson’s group.

“We are at the cutting edge of technology and analysis methods with this system,” Beard added. “While its discovery is quite statistically significant, we are still determining the status of the planet due to the uncertainty of our instruments and methods. We need the next generation of telescopes to directly image this candidate, but what we also need is community investment.”

Beard and Robertson are urging the exoplanet community to dig deeper into GJ 251 c as new ground-based observatories like TMT move closer to reality.

The work brought together researchers from UCLA, Pennsylvania State University, the University of the Netherlands, and the University of Colorado Boulder, with support from the National Science Foundation’s HPF exoplanet survey and NASA/NSF NN-EXPLORE and NASA ICAR programs.

For now, GJ 251 c stands out as a nearby, likely rocky super-Earth in the habitable zone of a common star, and a clear test case for what the next generation of telescopes can do in the search for potentially life-friendly worlds.

Source: ScienceDaily

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