Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Astronomers Find Smaller Extrasolar Planets

Posted by timothy on from the spaceporn dept.

SABME writes "NASA has announced the discovery of a new class of extra-solar planets. Here's a link to the NASA news release. These planets are only 10-15 times bigger than Earth; how far off are we from discovering Earth-sized planets orbiting other stars? Future NASA missions aimed at broadening these discoveries include Kepler, the Space Interferometry Mission and the Terrestrial Planet Finder. More info available at NASA's Extrasolar Planets webiste.

"

1 of 25 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I just read about this on the NYT... by astroboscope · · Score: 4, Informative
    neither article explains why these planets are signs of Earthlike planets

    I think they're just pleased that they've found a couple of sub-Saturn sized planets. i.e. planets at least as big as Jupiter were first and easiest to be found, then came Saturns, and now, as they hoped, the trend has continued to Neptunes, buoying their aspirations to find even smaller planets.

    --
    If we were ants living on a Rubik's cube, differential geometry would be a little more confusing.