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Smallest Planet Outside Our Solar System Found

Posted by Zonk on from the hard-to-spot-with-all-the-space-dust dept.

mikkl666 writes "Following the recent story about the discovery of the youngest planet outside our solar system, Spanish researchers now report that they found the smallest exoplanet observed so far. The planet, known as GJ 436c, was found by analyzing distortions in the orbit of another, larger planet, and its radius is only about 50 percent greater than the Earth's. The scientists are confident that their new method will lead to a series of further discoveries: 'I think we are very close, just a few years away, from detecting a planet like Earth.' You can also reference the the original paper online for further details."

6 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Bearing in mind... by localroger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...from this distance and with this technique, Venus would qualify as "a planet like Earth." It would truly suck to be the person who hiked 50 light-years to find that out.

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  2. just goes to show how crazy science is by jollyreaper · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I remember watching my Star Trek and seeing them fly their starships right up to star systems because that was the only way to explore them. Shit, I suppose you'd still have to put sats in orbit and probes on the surface to do detailed science but holy shit, detecting planets from lightyears away, even making guesses as to habitability by looking at star type, planetary orbit, even getting spectrographic readings from the atmosphere. I never would have believe it in a book. Yeah, hyperdrives I could buy but not this. Reality is stranger than fiction. Heh, it's just like all of the scifi guys assuming that ambulatory robots would be the easy part and making them think fast and speak well would be the tough part.

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    1. Re:just goes to show how crazy science is by geekoid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If we could bounce around from star to star within a week, that's how we would do it to.

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  3. Re:The article is wrong by Kjella · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This, ladies and gentlemen is why people don't RTFA. There's much better and accurate information in the comments. Can this mean that if the mass is higher but the density much lower, there could be earth-class gravity there? Would sound like a pretty good start to me...

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  4. Re:Question for rocket scientists by iNaya · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm sure we'd have no problem with that sort of technology by the time we actually reached that planet.

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  5. Re:Question for rocket scientists by cjsm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well, besides humans, this would also aply to any intelligent life that might evolve on such a planet. Would rocket technology be sufficient to get off a planet with two or three times the gravity of earth? At point would the gravity be too great for rocket technology to work?

    I'm sure we'd have no problem with that sort of technology by the time we actually reached that planet.

    Well, that's sort of a meaningless answer, since your talking about technology that doesn't exist either in reality or in theory. Why not talk about flying unicorns to solve the problem? Its just as unreal. No offense to you, but I'm mystified your answer was modded insightful. I've got news for the mods. WARP DRIVE DOESN'T EXIST, AND MAY NEVER EXIST. Just because its on Star Trek doesn't make it real. Warp drive violates the known laws of physics, and is likely impossible.

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