JOKER96BRAVO
Senior Member
- Aug 13, 2004
- 4,433
- 290
- 48
In a discovery that they described as a milestone in the quest to find out if
humans are alone in the universe, astronomers announced yesterday that
they had found the smallest planet yet outside the solar system.
With a mass only seven times that of the Earth, the new planet is probably a
ball of rock, its discoverers said. Orbiting closely to a dim red star in Aquarius
known as Gliese 876, it is the third and innermost member of a shrunken
version of our own solar system.
"This is by far the most Earth-like planet ever found," said Dr. Geoffrey Marcy
of the University of California, Berkeley, a member of the team that made the
discovery using one of the giant 10-meter diameter Keck telescopes in Hawaii.
Found: Earth's Distant Cousin
humans are alone in the universe, astronomers announced yesterday that
they had found the smallest planet yet outside the solar system.
With a mass only seven times that of the Earth, the new planet is probably a
ball of rock, its discoverers said. Orbiting closely to a dim red star in Aquarius
known as Gliese 876, it is the third and innermost member of a shrunken
version of our own solar system.
"This is by far the most Earth-like planet ever found," said Dr. Geoffrey Marcy
of the University of California, Berkeley, a member of the team that made the
discovery using one of the giant 10-meter diameter Keck telescopes in Hawaii.
Found: Earth's Distant Cousin
