Extrasolar Planets

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Joined: 1 Dec 2008
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18 Dec 2008, 9:01 am

This is from a month ago, but I still wanted to share because it is very excited, if you like astronomy:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=96949608
Being able to capture light from these planets opens up a lot of new possibilities. I can't wait until we can do this for more Earth-sized planets.

pakled
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20 Dec 2008, 11:02 pm

Yeah, it's mainly that the 'habitable orbit zone' is so close to the star, and the planets would have to be of a certain size, that picking them up is too difficult at present. I think they found one planet that was 'super-Jupiter' sized, but was able to have liquid (almost boiling) water on it.

DarthMaxeuis
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21 Dec 2008, 4:37 am

Great one.
They also found extrasolar planets with unknown configuration, like solid planets that are 2 times bigger than Jupiter.
And even one planet is revolving around two stars. They called it Tatooine (I guess you know why :wink: )

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Xelebes
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22 Dec 2008, 7:00 pm

pakled wrote:

The habitable orbit zone is actually bigger than what was originall expected, especially if the orbits of the planets are highly elliptical.

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