32 previously unknown exoplanets have been discovered with a high-precision instrument hooked up to a Chilean telescope...
The existence of the so-called exoplanets -- planets outside our solar system -- was announced at the European Southern Observatory/Center for Astrophysics, University of Porto conference in Porto, Portugal, according to a statement issued by the observatory.The announcement was made by a consortium of international researchers, headed by the Geneva Observatory, who built the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, or HARPS. The device can detect slight wobbles of stars as they respond to tugs from exoplanets' gravity. That tactic, known as the radial velocity method, "has been the most prolific method in the search for exoplanets," according to the European Southern Observatory statement.
The instrument detects movements as small as 3.5 km/hr (2.1 mph), a slow walking pace, the observatory said.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
New high resolution near infra-red spectrograph, designed to find earth like planets in the habitable zone around low mass cool stars, is funded by the National Science Foundation
Penn State Awarded $3.3 Million to Build Instrument for Finding Planets in Habitable Zones Around Nearby Stars…
The Pale Red Dot project has found a planet.
It is a terrestrial planet, orbiting in the formal habitable zone of Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Solar System.
This wide-field image shows the Milky Way stretching across the southern sky. The beautiful Carina Nebula (NGC 3372) is seen at…
Watch me as I gravitate (hahahahaha). -Gorillaz
Gravity -- unbelievably -- is the weakest force of all. But if you get enough mass together, gravity will overwhelm even the strongest outside influence. A simple case-in-point? You take a rock that's massive enough, and gravity will crush it into a…
"Continue to surprise those who would put you in a neat demographic. Be insistently curious." -Gordon Gee
Twenty years ago, our Solar System was the only one we knew of that we were certain had planets orbiting around a main-sequence star.
Image credit: retrieved from Universe-Review.ca.
Perhaps…
How do you know they're extra solar planets? Maybe they're just a part of the original complement...!