Pasadena Researcher Discovers New Method of Identifying Habitable Planets

A researcher at Jet Propulsion Laboratory said his group discovered a new approach to identifying planets that may host life or are hospitable to life.

The new study was published in Science journal on Friday, December 20.

Mark Swain, who studies atmospheres of exoplanet, said the findings in the research are exciting, News Tonight Africa reported.

“Why nobody saw this before, I don’t know. But it’s a really good insight, and it’s going to help us out a lot,” Swain told Tonight.

Swain noted that determining the mass of a planet is important in order to guess its bulk density, the news agency reported.

Two approaches are being done in determining the planet’s mass: the radial velocity technique which provides a least mass and the transit method which gives a highest mass. It is important to get the two measurements of the same planet, but it is not often possible, according to Tonight.

The newly discovered method will enable researchers to produce more accurate measurements for transiting planets, Tonight reported.