www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996329
The new planet, orbiting the star mu Arae, is 14 times the size of earth - the same size as Uranus, the smallest of our system's gas giants - but orbits at a tenth of earth's distance from the star. It was discovered by a team observing stellar pulses.
Edit - Tom C posted a topic about it while I was still writing this one, but it looks like he's deleted it - since his article was much better than mine, here's the link he gave:
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5819006/?GT1=4529
First Extra-Solar "Super-Earth" Found
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Re: First Extra-Solar "Super-Earth" Found
Murrin wrote:www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996329
The new planet, orbiting the star mu Arae, is 14 times the size of earth - the same size as Uranus, the smallest of our system's gas giants - but orbits at a tenth of earth's distance from the star. It was discovered by a team observing stellar pulses.
Edit - Tom C posted a topic about it while I was still writing this one, but it looks like he's deleted it - since his article was much better than mine, here's the link he gave:
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5819006/?GT1=4529
I'll bet Dick Cheney has already wondered how much oil it has.
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I thought this was very cool news indeed. It is amazing that we were able to find such a planet given the techniques at our disposal but I predict we will now see many more "terrestrial" type planets being discovered. 
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TOM C wrote:I thought this was very cool news indeed. It is amazing that we were able to find such a planet given the techniques at our disposal but I predict we will now see many more "terrestrial" type planets being discovered.
The coolest thing about it is that it is in the so-called "goldilocks" or life zone.
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I totally agree. We are making discoveries that take us step by step closer to confirming all the theories about the existence other inhabitable planets in the universe. Once we have a sampling of these kinds of planets a probability equation will be fomulated about the real number of these worlds and I predict the number will be staggering.A Gunslinger wrote:TOM C wrote:I thought this was very cool news indeed. It is amazing that we were able to find such a planet given the techniques at our disposal but I predict we will now see many more "terrestrial" type planets being discovered.
The coolest thing about it is that it is in the so-called "goldilocks" or life zone.
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Oh yeah! He'd be saying. "I told you guys, but would you listen to me? Hell no. I've been going on about billions and billions of stars for years. Nya nya nya!"A Gunslinger wrote:Dont you wish Sagan were alive to see this stuff?
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