Slashdot Mirror
Scientists Discover Exoplanet Less Than Twice the Mass of Earth
Snowblindeye writes with this excerpt from the European Southern Observatory:
"Well-known exoplanet researcher Michel Mayor today announced the discovery of the lightest exoplanet found so far. The planet, 'e,' in the famous system Gliese 581, is only about twice the mass of Earth. The team also refined the orbit of the planet Gliese 581 d, first discovered in 2007, placing it well within the habitable zone, where liquid water oceans could exist. Planet Gliese 581 e orbits its host star — located only 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra ('the Scales') — in just 3.15 days. 'With only 1.9 Earth-masses, it is the least massive exoplanet ever detected and is, very likely, a rocky planet,' says co-author Xavier Bonfils from Grenoble Observatory. Being so close to its host star, the planet is not in the habitable zone. But another planet in this system appears to be. ... The planet furthest out, Gliese 581 d, orbits its host star in 66.8 days. 'Gliese 581 d is probably too massive to be made only of rocky material, but we can speculate that it is an icy planet that has migrated closer to the star,' says team member Stephane Udry. The new observations have revealed that this planet is in the habitable zone, where liquid water could exist. '"d" could even be covered by a large and deep ocean — it is the first serious "water world" candidate,' continued Udry."
slashdot is news for nerds, and I check here first. Is earthlink down? Website will not load, and hosted website is down, and email through them is gone.
Did anyone else glance at Gliese and read that as uncomfortably close to Goatse.cx?
By the way, off topic, as it is, how does one prevent from being fooled by tinyurl links to goatse.cx?
I can benchpress less than twice the mass of the earth.
Slashdot editors get PAID for what they do?
I guess that's a good sign. Because if such a benighted group of anencephalic twits can run one of the net's busiest sites, the world must be doing damn well.
Less than twice the size of earth, eh? I'll tell you what else is also less than twice the size of earth. My left nut.