New Planets Astound Astronomers in Speed and Distance

October 5, 2006 by  

If I start feeling anxious about the state of our world: politics, war, society, disease, economics, environment…reading about a new discovery in the cosmos shifts my perspective immediately. 

New Planets Astound Astronomers in Speed and Distance: "Among a batch of new planets, found by the Hubble telescope on a small patch of sky in Sagittarius, are as many as five that orbit their home stars in less than a day."

One planet orbits its star, a so-called dwarf slightly smaller than the Sun, in only 10 hours, “the likes of which we had never seen before,” Kailash Sahu of the Space Telescope Science Institute, leader of the team that did the work, said, calling the results “a big surprise.”

By comparison, Mercury, swiftest in the our solar system, races around the Sun once every 88 days.

The new planets, all roughly the size of Jupiter, orbit so near their stars that they are heated to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, said Dr. Sahu, who noted that if their home stars were any bigger, the planets would simply evaporate. potential planets are found in increasing numbers, Dr. Boss said, the odds increase that planets and planetary systems like Earth’s would be found.

Mario Livio, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute and a member of Dr. Sahu’s team, said, “There are literally billions of planets in our galaxy.”

(Via NYT > Science.)

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