Trio of Super-Earths Discovered

FiReaNGeL writes "A group of astronomers have now discovered a system of three super-Earths around a rather normal star, which is slightly less massive than our Sun, and is located 42 light-years away towards the southern Doradus and Pictor constellations. 'We have made very precise measurements of the velocity of the star HD 40307 over the last five years, which clearly reveal the presence of three planets.' The planets, having 4.2, 6.7, and 9.4 times the mass of the Earth, orbit the star with periods of 4.3, 9.6, and 20.4 days, respectively. 'The perturbations induced by the planets are really tiny — the mass of the smallest planets is one hundred thousand times smaller than that of the star — and only the high sensitivity of HARPS made it possible to detect them' says co-author François Bouchy, from the Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, France. Clearly these planets are only the tip of the iceberg."

Comments

Please tell us more oh wise one

[Anonymous Coward]

"Clearly these planets are only the tip of the iceberg."

And further on in the article:
"It is most probable that there are many other planets present: not only super-Earth and Neptune-like planets with longer periods, but also Earth-like planets that we cannot detect yet. Add to it the Jupiter-like planets already known, and you may well arrive at the conclusion that planets are ubiquitous," concludes Udry.

Interesting science they are doing over there. So lacking any evidence that planets are ubiquitous, and even worse that true Earth-like planets exist in the first place even though they can't yet detect them, they are ready to say that they must exist because they have now found some "smaller" hunks of mass orbiting a star?

I thought scientific FACT was built on the presence of observed (not potentially observable... OBSERVED) evidence to support the hypotheses and tests devised when using the scientific method. I hope more of this new science, just like the new math, makes into all of those schoolbooks are youngsters are using in school these days.

Re:So...we found...?

[eebra82]

So we found more oil? Not yet. First we must find some, look in some pits in the ground, shave and prosecute whatever we find in that hole, waste a few trillions and THEN import the oil.

Re:So...we found...?

[The Spoonman]

Impossible, as the Bible clearly states God created the Earth and populated it with life. There is no mention of life being put anywhere else in the sphere of the heavens that contains all of the stars (including our sun!) and rotates around the Earth. Since oil is a result of thousands of years of dinosaurs being killed by man and then melting down into juice, there's no way there could be oil there. Any oil we might find there was put there by the Devil in an attempt to draw you from the true path to God. QED