Astronomers still don't know what life might be like -- or if it could exist -- on planets near twice the size of our own. Would these worlds be toxic wastelands or ocean oases?(NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ames) If you look up at Earth’s night sky and find the constellation Cetus — it looks something like a sea monster — you might also notice a rather average looking star called Tau Ceti. It’s slightly smaller than our sun and sits just 12 light years from Earth. Now, a new study suggests that the system has at least four planets, and two of them orbit on the edge of their habitable zones — the region where liquid surface water might exist. All four are likely super-Earths, and some could potentially even be as big as Neptune.
The new paper, accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal, compiles more than 9,000 measurements, finding two new planets ...
