Planets orbiting the near-by star 37 Gemini are the most likely candidate for alien life according to Astrobiologist Maggie Turnbull of the University of Arizona in Tuscon. While working for NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder (and in cooperation with the ESA Darwin project), she examined a list of some 5000 or so stars that were all with 100 light-years of Earth. 37 Gemini topped her short list of 30 stars as being the likely candidate for extraterrestrial life because it looks most like our sun, has a similar mass to our sun, appears to be of a similar age as our sun, is not a part of binary or multiple star system, and has the right level of detected heavy metals.

Click any image to enlarge:

1. POSS2/UKSTU IR/Red/Blue image: 7.5 arc minutes by 7.5 arc minutes.
2. POSS2/UKSTU Infrared image: 7.5 arc minutes by 7.5 arc minutes.
3. HST Phase 2 image: 15 arc minutes by 15 arc minutes.
4. POSS1 red filtered large image: 1 degree by 1 degree.

The bright star in the middle is 37 Gemini. Several faint galaxies can also be seen in each image.

For more information see the 3 Oct 2003 New Scientist article.