Solar System in Cancer has Planet in Habitable Zone

The star 55 Cancri, in the constellation Cancer, has been found to have a solar system containing five planets. Four of the stars were discovered between 1996 and 2004.  A fifth has been discovered by Debra Fischer and her team at San Francisco State University.

The fifth planet, which was discovered by studying observations from Hawaii’s Keck Observatory and California’s Lick observatory, orbits about every 260 days. It has about half the mass of Saturn.  The planet is the fourth furthest out of the five known planets, and lies in the zone where the temperature is neither too hot nor too cold for life (the habitable zone).

With five planets, 55 Cancri’s solar system has more planets than any other solar system that we know of, other than our own.  Fischer believes that 55 Cancri has more planets that have not yet been discovered.