Sub-Orbital Space Flights & Satellite Exploration
Please join us on Facebook for the latest science news and videos: tinyurl.com ESOcast 20: Richest planetary system discovered – A new era in exoplanet science (Release date: 24 August 2010). Astronomers using ESO instruments have discovered a remarkable extrasolar planetary system that has some striking similarities to our own Solar System. At least five planets are orbiting the Sun-like star HD 10180, and the regular pattern of their orbits is similar to that observed for our neighbouring planets. One of the new extrasolar worlds could be only 1.4 times the mass of the Earth, making it the least massive exoplanet ever found. This video podcast explains how these faraway planets were detected and exactly what we know about them. — Please subscribe to Science & Reason: • www.youtube.com • www.youtube.com • www.youtube.com • www.youtube.com — Astronomers using ESO’s world-leading HARPS instrument have discovered a planetary system containing at least five planets, orbiting the Sun-like star HD 10180. The researchers also believe the system has two other planets, one of which would have the lowest mass ever found, making the system similar to our own Solar System in terms of the number of planets. Furthermore, the scientists find that the location of the planets follows a regular pattern, as also seen in our own Solar System The team of astronomers used the HARPS spectrograph, attached to ESO’s 3.6-metre telescope at La Silla, Chile. HARPS is an instrument with …
Tags: science, solar, exoplanets, system
European astronomers have found at least 32 new planets, bringing the number of known planets outside our solar system to more than 400. Six of the new planets discovered by the European Southern Observatory are less than 20 times the mass of Earth. The discovery increased the number of known super-Earths by 30 per cent. At the extremes, two of the new planets are about five times the size of Earth, and one is up to five times larger than Jupiter. None of the new planets is in the habitable zone of a star. Astronomer Stéphane Udry of the University of Geneva announced the discovery at a conference Monday in Porto, Portugal. He said it supports the idea that planets are a common feature in the universe. “I’m pretty confident that there are Earth-like planets everywhere,” Udry said in a web-based news conference. “Nature doesn’t like a vacuum. If there is space to put a planet there, there will be a planet there.” The discoveries came from an instrument known as HARPS (High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher), a spectrograph for the ESO 3.6-metre telescope in La Silla, Chile. The instrument detects planets indirectly by looking for tiny wobbles in a star’s movements. HARPS has found more than 75 planets outside the solar system, or exoplanets, including 24 of the 28 known super-Earths. Most of the super-Earths were found in systems with multiple planets, up to five planets per system. As well, the survey found gas giant planets orbiting low-mass stars called M dwarfs …
Tags: found, Planets, science, Astronomers
