Gliese 581 e is an exoplanet orbiting the red dwarf star Gliese 581, about twenty light-years from the Sun in the constellation Libra. It was announced by a European team using the HARPS spectrograph at La Silla Observatory in Chile, which finds planets by measuring tiny wobbles in the star's motion. At the time, it was one of the lowest-mass exoplanets known, with a minimum mass only about twice that of the Earth. It lies very close to its star, so it is far too hot for liquid water. The system gained wide attention because other planets in it were once proposed to lie in the habitable zone, though some of those claims have since been disputed.
Before and after
- from March 2009 to August 20102009 swine flu pandemic
- March 2009Release of Uber
- 7 March 2009Launch of Kepler Space Telescope
- 6 April 20092009 L'Aquila earthquake
- 21 April 2009Discovery of Gliese 581 e
- 30 April 20092009 attack on the Dutch royal family
- 14 May 2009Launch of Herschel Space Observatory
- 14 May 2009Launch of Planck
- from 19 May 2009 to 20 March 2015Premiere of Glee
More in Universe & space
- 22 June 1978Discovery of Charon
- 20 January 1986Discovery of Ophelia
- 24 April 1990Launch of Hubble Space Telescope
- 1998Supernovae show that cosmic expansion is accelerating
- 20 November 1998Launch of International Space Station
- 10 April 2019The first image of a black hole
The era
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