Earth-Sized Planets Confirmed -- But They're Dead

tizo writes "Robert Britt wrote an interesting article about the discovery of three Earth-sized planets confirmed after ten years of controversy. They orbit a pulsar, a neutron stars spinning very rapidly. Researchers pinned down the masses by watching how the planets affect pulses of energy coming from the star. All other known planets around other stars are much bigger (like Jupiter) and were found using other techniques (Doppler effect of main star moving in a close circle because of influence of the planet or direct transit over line of sight)."

Comments

how to find...

[Ransak]

extrasolar planets.

Ten years of controversy?

[pq]

I don't know about "ten years of controversy" - these things have been around since 1992 and pretty widely accepted. Here's the original Nature abstract (1992) and here's Alex W's ADS entry - there's a pretty steady stream of PSR B1257+12 papers, and not much in the way of controversy.

But yes, it is extraordinarily neat!