Bear-ly within the margins

Goldilocks made for a bad house guest, as fairytale lore makes clear.

But her nosy and careless B&E at the bear family’s home in search of porridge, chairs and a bed that were “just right” make for a great analogy. Hence the excitement last week over the first Earth-sized planet discovered by scientists in the “Goldilocks zone” of a distance solar system.

In the hunt for a planet like our own, astronomers believe the Goldilocks zone is gold. It is the place near a star that is not too hot and not too cold, and could potentially be just right for conditions that allow life as we know it to exist.

Astronomers say the planet, Kepler-186f (truly a name only scientists could love), revolves around a red dwarf star and is probably more akin to an earthly cousin than a twin. It was identified as part of research being fuelled by NASA’s Kepler space-based telescope which is scanning the sky for planets in other solar systems that might allow water to pool.

At 500 light-years from Earth, Kepler-186f is far enough away that it would take any human — even Goldilocks — many, many lifetimes to get there with current technology. That doesn’t stop this from being really cool news.

Ignoring the fact that no one has actually set eyes yet on the planet, which has been identified using a scientific technique called the transit method that involves monitoring how light from a star changes, it’s exciting to think that might be somewhere else, other than Earth, where humans could survive.

There are still a lot of “mights” attached to this story. But just right seems like a great place to start.