Smallest Planet Outside Our Solar System Found

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."

Comments

Bearing in mind...

[localroger]

...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.

Re:The article is wrong

[Kjella]

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...