High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Gliese 581 d or Gl 581 d is an extrasolar planet orbiting the star Gliese 581 approximately 20 light-years away in the constellation of Libra. Because of its mass, between 7 and 14 times that of Earth, the planet is classified as a super-Earth. In late April 2009, new observations by the original discovery team concluded that the planet is within the habitable zone where liquid water may exist. A team of astronomers led by Stéphane Udry of the Geneva Observatory used the HARPS instrument on the European Southern Observatory 3.6 meter telescope in La Silla, Chile to discover the planet in 2007. Udry's team employed the radial velocity technique, in which the size and mass of a planet are determined based on the small perturbations it induces in its parent star s orbit via gravity.