42 Worlds in 32 Days

Odie writes: "Since the first discovery of a planet around another star in 1995, some 60+ planetary systems have been discovered. That's about one every two month, most of them uninhabitable Jupiter-sized heavyweights. Not much statistics to put in the Drake equation. Recently though, the OGLE team has come up with more than 42 new candidates. Nice in itself, but what is spectacular is that they spent only 32 days finding them! At that rate COROT should soon find plenty of worlds to explore for you budding Starfleet sailors! "

Comments

Good first step.

[Restil]

We need to get all the stars that have large planets identified as such, and hopefully all of the large planets in such solar systems. Then as our equipment gets better we'll be able to focus on even smaller changes, which will allow us to pick up earth sized planets or smaller.

Also of interest are planets in habitable zones, even large ones. Moons around larger planets could work as well as earth does in the right orbit. Of course, being in such close proximity to a massive planet could present other problems, as massive bodies are more likely to attract other significantly sized rocks, as well as a LOT of radiation if there is a significant magnetic field.

-Restil