Slashdot Mirror


New Large Rocky Planet Found

An anonymous reader writes "Discovery News is reporting the discovery of a super-sized rocky planet orbiting a red-dwarf. The star is located about 9000 ly from the sun. The planet consists of rock and ice and orbits at around the distance of asteroid belt. The planet could not grow to Jupiter size because the star is small and the system ran out of gas. The planet is about 13 earth masses and was discovered using the microlensing technique. Since most of the stars in the Milky Way are smaller than the sun, we should expect more of similar findings."

7 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. Bad Joke by wasted · · Score: 4, Funny

    As more of these planets are found using microlensing, perhaps someone could put together the "Rocky Planet Picture Show."

    Sorry, had to do that.

    1. Re:Bad Joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny
      Sorry, had to do that.

      No, you didn't.

  2. Super-sized? by malsdavis · · Score: 3, Funny

    What the hell does a "super-sized rocky planet" mean?

    I really hate the way Discovery channel always takes information and adjusts it purely for their largest target audience - extremely overweight, couch potatoes who dislike going for more than 5 minutes without seeing the words "super-size".

  3. Re:ya and so.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    We have found other planets like this before, this is not news.

    Sure, to YOU it's just a dupe of celestial proportions.

    But some of us are FROM Altair Centauri, and this is the first news item we've had in 9000 years, you insensitive clod.

  4. Re:Ok Where are the E.T.s by 0racle · · Score: 4, Funny

    intelligent life like ourselves
    One of these things is not like the other.

    --
    "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
  5. Re:ya and so.... by Bad+D.N.A. · · Score: 3, Funny

    They found a new planet, 13 times the mass of Earth, and you're bored?

    dude. You can't explain the relevance of the study when your audience does not understand the word "relevance"

    --
    "Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations"
  6. Re:ly? by meringuoid · · Score: 4, Funny
    'Lyrs' is also common.

    I thought that was an abbreviation for 'politicians'. As in 'Tony Blair and George Bush are lyrs.'

    --
    Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.