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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."

9 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.

      --
      No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
  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.'

    --
    DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
  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.

    --
    Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
  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.

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
    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...

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    2. Re:The article is wrong by CheshireCatCO · · Score: 4, Informative

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

  6. 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.