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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."

15 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Analyzing distortions? by monkeyboythom · · Score: 5, Funny

    So you are saying that I can deduce a small child hovering around an obese parent by the way the bigger person's fat jiggles? Brilliant! Now if it only works on fat chicks, then I can discover if they have a hot, smaller female friend nearby...

    1. Re:Analyzing distortions? by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 5, Funny

      Nah. With chicks, it's just the opposite. The small hot ones are always orbited by larger ones.

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  2. Hal Clement by jdigriz · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think we have a Mission of Gravity here. 5x the mass of earth but only 50% more radius? I for one, welcome our Mesklinite Overlords.

  3. I call it... by spazdor · · Score: 4, Funny

    'Pluto.'

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  4. 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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  5. The article is wrong by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 5, Informative
    The article seems to be wrong. Smaller planets have been discovered orbiting pulsars. Check out PSF 1257+12a for a small planet.

    What they mean to say is that this seems to be the lowest mass planet found orbiting a main-sequence star.

    It's also annoying that the press release quotes the radius of the planet (which cannot be measured, and is only an approximation based on guesses at density), when what they actually measured is the mass. Planetary densities vary widely; they have no idea what the radius is.

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    1. 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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    2. Re:The article is wrong by Falkkin · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes, I wish we could score the article -1, Wrong. This is the smallest exoplanet discovered "around a Sun-like star". More details on this and previous discoveries can be found at the Bad Astronomy blog:

      http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/04/10/no-its-not-the-smallest-exoplanet-found/

    3. Re:The article is wrong by CheshireCatCO · · Score: 4, Informative

      You got it. Phil Plait (aka, The Bad Astronomer) ranted about this today.

    4. Re:The article is wrong by j1m+5n0w · · Score: 3, Informative

      From the article:

      With a mass about five times greater than Earth's, it is the smallest planet yet discovered outside the solar system

      From wikipedia article on Gliese 581c:

      Using the known minimum mass of the previously detected Gliese 581 b, and assuming the existence of Gliese 581 d, Gliese 581 c has a mass at least 5.03 times that of Earth. The mass of the planet cannot be very much larger than this or the system would be dynamically unstable.

      It seems like it may be a little premature to assume that the new planet is the smallest, even when comparing to planets around main-sequence stars.

      I agree the radius is probably a made up number.

      Scientist: "Assuming a density similar to earth's, the radius of the planet would be 50% greater than Earth's."

      Science reporter: "The planet's radius is 50% greater than Earth's."

  6. 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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  7. It's not really confirmed... by Plamadude30k · · Score: 5, Informative

    I (and a group of people) am actually researching this system myself. We observed a transit of GJ436b on March 30, and we're reducing the data now. I'd like to point out, however, this paper is NOT a discovery article. I read it in February (before it was published), and I've got it on my desk right in front of me. Basically, it PREDICTS that there MIGHT be a planet of said radius and mass in an orbit about twice as far out as GJ436b (a transiting hot neptune), but it also says that more study is needed to confirm the existence of this planet. What my study was trying to do was to show that there's a change in GJ436b's orbit caused by this new theoretical planet. So far, things look promising, but we haven't confirmed anything yet.

  8. 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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  9. 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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