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Three Neptune-sized Planets Found Nearby
WillAffleckUW writes "CNN reports the discovery of three Neptune-sized planets found in orbit around a sun 41 light years away. The star they orbit is similar to our Sun, and the planetary distribution is probably similar to our Solar System. Recent observations by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope last year revealed that HD 69830 also hosts an asteroid belt, making it the only other sun-like star known to have one. No word on if they have habitable moons, or monoliths yet."
As opposed to something that is over 7,000 - 10,000 light years away, 41 isn't very far. I mean it's no Alpha Centauri, but it's close in astronomical terms.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
It wasn't that long ago (err, wow, 10 years, maybe that's long) that the first extrasolar planet was discovered. I still remember that news announcement I watched on TV...
Anyway, since the discovery of those 3 planets, another planet has been found. Check out the exoplanet encyclopedia (my favourite exoplanets site). It has a catalog with all the data of those planets, some with uncertainty factors. Discovery method, size, catalogue number, the whole lot. Try chucking all that into a spread-sheet, and plot some scatter graphs. Should be a lotta fun. The last time I tried this, it was a bit problematic because the masses are not really known (for planets discovered using spectral shifts), but are merely minimum (maximum?) limits only. But still, an order of magnitude plot could be fun.
Anyway, the 3 planets are already in the catalogue under HD 69830. Don't forget to check out this one as well. Exciting times. I look forward to 200 planets!
Dude, you could at least give some attribution to http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/ques tions/question19.html
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