Astronomers find 28 new exoplanets
Posted: Wed, May 30, 2007, 7:45 AM ET (1145 GMT)
A team of astronomers announced this week the discovery of an additional 28 extrasolar planets as well as additional information about one previously-known intriguing world. The 28 new exoplanets, announced Monday at an American Astronomical Society conference in Honolulu, were found by two separate efforts in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, both looking for periodic Doppler shifts in the spectral lines of stars caused by gravitational wobbles induced by orbiting planets. The discoveries bring the total number of known exoplanets to 236. The team also announced studies of a previously-discovered exoplanet, Gliese 436b, which recent research suggested may be made of "hot ice". They measured the size and density of the planet through a series of transits and found it has a density of two grams per cubic centimeter, suggesting a composition evenly split between rocky material, likely in the planet's core, and water, compressed into an ice mantle.
A team of astronomers announced this week the discovery of an additional 28 extrasolar planets as well as additional information about one previously-known intriguing world. The 28 new exoplanets, announced Monday at an American Astronomical Society conference in Honolulu, were found by two separate efforts in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, both looking for periodic Doppler shifts in the spectral lines of stars caused by gravitational wobbles induced by orbiting planets. The discoveries bring the total number of known exoplanets to 236. The team also announced studies of a previously-discovered exoplanet, Gliese 436b, which recent research suggested may be made of "hot ice". They measured the size and density of the planet through a series of transits and found it has a density of two grams per cubic centimeter, suggesting a composition evenly split between rocky material, likely in the planet's core, and water, compressed into an ice mantle.
Related Links:
| <<previous article | next article>> |
|
news in brief
|
|
|
|
news links
|
|
Saturday, January 24
Vandenberg Announces New Strategic Plan
US Space Force — 6:59 am ET (1159 GMT) Launches planned from SaxaVord for European Space Agency test programme
Shetland News — 6:58 am ET (1158 GMT) ISRO Begins Work On India’s Own Space Station: First Module Of BAS To Be Launched By 2028
News18.com — 6:55 am ET (1155 GMT) NASA is about to send people to the moon — in a spacecraft not everyone thinks is safe to fly
CNN — 6:52 am ET (1152 GMT) NASA honors Faden, Kurth for achievements on Juno mission
Univ. of Iowa — 6:49 am ET (1149 GMT) |
