Just because a planet or moon is in the Goldilocks Zone of a star, doesn't mean it's going to have life or even liquid water.Īfter all, Earth isn't the only planet in the Sun's Goldilocks Zone - Venus and Mars are also in this habitable zone, but aren't currently habitable. Observations by the European Southern Observatory's High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher, has concluded about 40 per cent of red dwarfs have super-Earth class planets orbiting in their habitable zone.Īlternatively, NASA's planet hunting Kepler space telescope searches for planets orbiting in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars by looking for planets with an average 365-day orbit. 'This means life should have lots of time to evolve and develop around such as star,' he said. Red dwarfs are the most common type of star in the Milky Way galaxy, and have very long life expectancies. 'The location of a Goldilocks Zone around another star depends on the type of star,' Professor Webb said.īigger hotter stars have their Goldilocks Zones further out, while smaller cooler stars such as M-type red dwarf stars have habitable zones much closer in. Looking for planets in the Goldilocks Zone is a way that allows scientists to hone in their search for Earth-like planets that could contain life.īasically, the assumption is that if it's possible there may be liquid water on the planet, then it's also possible that the planet may be habitable. 'There's plenty of life on Earth and there's plenty of water, but we've yet to find life on other planets even in our own solar system.' There are at least a dozen or so potentially habitable exoplanets, planets which are in varying degrees similar to Earth.

Goldilocks galaxy