Jul 05, 2014 10:51 AM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

A new study has apparently put an end to speculation that there are two planets somewhat near to our planet Earth that may also be habitable.

According to the Washington Post, two researchers from Penn State University (PSU) used a certain technique to verify this "Goldilocks" planet and then to disprove it. In their study, they also proved that a second planet also orbiting a dwarf star named Gilese 581 was no more than an illusion.

The two planets were discovered four years ago some 20 light-years from Earth and were promising signs of potentially habitable planets aside from our own. The PSU scientists used a technique they are developing in order to detect habitable planets and they said Gilese's own physical changes created the illusion of a second planet.

The researchers published their study in the journal Science.

"This result is exciting because it explains, for the first time, all the previous and somewhat conflicting observations of the intriguing dwarf star Gliese 581, a faint star with less mass than our Sun that is just 20 light years from Earth," study lead author Paul Robertson, a PSU postdoctoral fellow affiliated with the Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, said in a press release.

They did find three other planets in Gilese's planetary system, but reported none were in the "habitable zone," meaning none were at a distance where liquid water could exist on the planet. "It's bittersweet," study co-author Suvrath Mahadevan, assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at PSU, told the Washington Post. "We are pleased the technique works, but on the other hand, we have disproved these two planets. It would have been nice if they had existed."

Though they disproved two planets believed to be potentially habitable, the scientists came away from their study with a positive outlook. Robertson indicated that this new technique will be more accurate and will yield even more promising results in future studies.

"Our improved detection of the real planets in this system gives us confidence that we are now beginning to sufficiently eliminate Doppler signals from stellar activity to discover new, habitable exoplanets, even when they are hidden beneath stellar noise," Robertson said. "While it is unfortunate to find that two such promising planets do not exist, we feel that the results of this study will ultimately lead to more Earth-like planets."

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