THREE NEW PLANETS FOUND

Three New Planets found

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - European researchers said on Monday they discovered a batch of three "super-Earths" orbiting a nearby star, and two other solar systems with small planets as well.

They said their findings, presented at a conference in France, suggest that Earth-like planets may be very common.
"Does every single star harbor planets and, if yes, how many?" asked Michel Mayor of Switzerland's Geneva Observatory. "We may not yet know the answer but we are making huge progress towards it," Mayor said in a statement.
The trio of planets orbit a star slightly less massive than our Sun, 42 light-years away towards the southern Doradus and Pictor constellations. A light-year is the distance light can travel in one year at a speed of 186,000 miles a second, or about 6 trillion miles.
The planets are bigger than Earth -- one is 4.2 times the mass, one is 6.7 times and the third is 9.4 times.
They orbit their star at extremely rapid speeds -- one whizzing around in just four days, compared with Earth's 365 days, one taking 10 days and the slowest taking 20 days.
Mayor and colleagues used the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher or HARPS, a telescope at La Silla observatory in Chile, to find the planets.
More than 270 so-called exoplanets have been found. Most are giants, resembling Jupiter or Saturn. Smaller planets closer to the size of Earth are far more difficult to spot.
None can be imaged directly at such distances but can be spotted indirectly using radio waves or, in the case of HARPS, spectrographic measurements. As a planet orbits, it makes the star wobble very slightly and this can be measured.
"With the advent of much more precise instruments such as the HARPS spectrograph ... we can now discover smaller planets, with masses between 2 and 10 times the Earth's mass," said Stephane Udry, who also worked on the study.
The team also said they found a planet 7.5 times the mass of Earth orbiting the star HD 181433 in 9.5 days. This star also has a Jupiter-like planet that orbits every three years.
Another solar system has a planet 22 times the mass of Earth, orbiting every four days, and a Saturn-like planet with a 3-year period.
"Clearly these planets are only the tip of the iceberg," said Mayor.
"The analysis of all the stars studied with HARPS shows that about one third of all solar-like stars have either super-Earth or Neptune-like planets with orbital periods shorter than 50 days."
(ORIGINAL Reporting on yahoo.com by Maggie Fox; Editing by John O'Callaghan)

slightly off topic....I heard that Pluto had been or will be renamed to Plutoid???

...my son is gonna be pissed!

WHY!? GODDAMNIT!!!

Mandalorian HorridWing wrote:

WHY!? GODDAMNIT!!!

I dunno...I guess they got nothin' better to do than mess with things...

I liked that planet (moon)

I think it's because they wanna be right and can't prove evolution.

just tell your son they named it chew toy and rubber ducky...

Dude, at 4 he memorized the names in order backwards and forwards. Also, he knows the names of their primary moons (Saturn has like 30+ so it's a little much to know them all..). He also knows that Pluto (I won't call it Plutoid) and Neptune have orbits that cross where Pluto becomes the 8th planet from the sun for like 35 years and then switch back for 228? years. They last switched back in 1999? Anyway, he doesn't know for how long just knows it happens now and then. The boy loves space...

i can tell. how old is your son?

anyway to get back on track, do you think theres life on those planets?

Jet Sniper wrote:

i can tell. how old is your son?

He turned 5 in May...

Jet Sniper wrote:

anyway to get back on track, do you think theres life on those planets?

Which ones? The new ones? The new ones, I would speculate that yes there is if the atmosphere is capable of supporting life as we know it. The rest of "ours", I would say no. Maybe once was or will be in the future. We will know when we better understand the "cycle" of things and at what point in time we are at in the "cycle".

Spoiler:

Wow hes smart young! Kinda like me well good for him!
























...

ill pm you a quiz for the little -mumble- -grumble- ....

Jet Sniper wrote:

ill pm you a quiz for the little ....................

Little what??? Don't mess with my boy....

i thought he was a a ban- nevermind lol sorry im doing this for a laugh lander, im sure you son is a great kid and if he was six years younger would could hang out, if you were in my town...

I think you mean if he was six years older. And I'm not sure I'd want him hanging out in old man's sheds playing with missiles.

...my turn for jokes!

well at least im NOT a banshee lol

Jet Sniper wrote:

well at least im NOT a banshee lol

or are you...

i thought you adopted a banshee

Jet Sniper wrote:

i thought you adopted a banshee

You lil...

Spoiler:

then whats the youngest thing in your house???


jk