Thursday, August 21, 2008

A harvest of low-mass exoplanets discovered with HARPS. ESO 19/08 Science Release. Excerpt Today, at an international conference, a team of European astronomers announced a remarkable breakthrough in the field of extra-solar planets. Using the HARPS instrument at the ESO La Silla Observatory, they have found a triple system of super-Earths around the star HD 40307.

Moreover, looking at their entire sample studied with HARPS, the astronomers count a total of 45 candidate planets with a mass below 30 Earth masses and an orbital period shorter than 50 days. This implies that one solar like star out of three harbours such planets.

Labels: A Trio of Super-Earths

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