Three New Planets Discovered in Pegasus; 130 Million Lightyears Away

[Stealth Hunter]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/0...ets/index.html

Three medium-sized planets of roughly the same mass as Neptune have been discovered around a nearby sun-like star, scientists announced today.

The planets were discovered around HD 69830, a star slightly less massive than the sun located 41 light-years away in the constellation Puppis (the Stern), using the ultra-precise HARPS spectrograph on the European Southern Observatory's 3.6-meter La Silla telescope in Chile.

The finding, detailed in the May 18 issue of the journal Nature, marks a first for astronomers because previously discovered multi-planet solar systems besides our own contain at least one giant, Jupiter-sized planet.

"For the first time, we have discovered a planetary system composed of several Neptune-mass planets," said study team member Christophe Lovis of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland.

The setup is similar to our own solar system in many ways: The outermost planet is located just within the star's habitable zone, where temperatures are moderate enough for liquid water to form, and the system also contains an asteroid belt.

The newly discovered planets have masses of about 10, 12 and 18 times that of Earth and they zip around the star in rapid orbits of about 9, 32 and 197 days, respectively.

Based on their distances from the star, two inner worlds nearest the star are rocky planets similar to Mercury, the scientists suspect. The outermost planet is thought to have a solid core of rock and ice and is shrouded by a thick gas envelope.
Recent observations by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope last year revealed that HD 69830 also hosts an asteroid belt, making it the only other sun-like star known to have one.

When the asteroid belt was found, it was suspected that there might be an unseen planet that was shepherding the asteroids; it now seems that there is more than one shepherd. The researchers think the asteroid belt could lie between the two outermost planets or beyond the third planet.

The planets have not been photographed. They were found using the Doppler, or "wobble," technique, in which astronomers infer the presence of a planet by measuring the gravitational influence it exerts on its parent star. This technique was used to find most of the more than 180 planets so far discovered.

In the early years of planet hunting, the wobble technique was sensitive enough to spot only large, massive planets because they produce more significant stellar wobbles. However, the technique has since been refined to the point where lower-mass planets can now be detected.

Shame we'll never be able to explore them. Interesting news, however.

Note that "Pegasus" refers to their corner of space (the corner that the constellation sits in).

[Blacklight]

Wow ! First the DNA thing and now this. This is really a great day for science !

All we need now is for Ronald L. Mallett to get his time travel theory verified and we'll be all set !

[XabbaRus]

The BBC was saying 25 lightyears away...

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

The BBC was saying 25 lightyears away...

Either way it is an impossible distance.

Without being able to fold space it would take longer to get there than the earth is old.

[August]

Originally Posted by SteamWake

Either way it is an impossible distance.

Without being able to fold space it would take longer to get there than the earth is old.

Present day top speed is about 7 miles per second (Apollo 10).

25 light years = 187k x 60 x 60 x 24 x 365 x 25?

[Task Force]

130 million lightyears would be imposiable, And to even travel at the speed of light you would have to be particals. And what are the chances that that planet is no longer there, It took 130 million lightyears for the light from that planet to reach earth.

[mengle]

does anybody know how many years it takes for the space shuttle to travler a lightyear :hmm: