Smallest Planet Outside Solar System Discovered
Space Ref
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Astronomers from Princeton and other institutions have discovered the smallest planet found outside of our solar system using a technique that researchers believe will uncover others that potentially harbor life.
The rocky, icy planet is about five-and-a-half times the mass of Earth and is located more than 20,000 light years away in the constellation Sagittarius, close to the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The discovery, detailed in the Jan. 26 issue of Nature, was made by a collaboration of astronomers worldwide, including the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) group co-founded by Princeton's Bohdan Paczynski.
Researchers do not believe that life could be sustained on the frigid new planet, which has an estimated surface temperature of minus 364 degrees Fahrenheit -- similar to Pluto's. The planet orbits its star at a distance of more than three times that of the Earth orbiting the sun; its star is about one-fifth the mass of our sun.
Jan 28, 2006
Space Ref
_______
Astronomers from Princeton and other institutions have discovered the smallest planet found outside of our solar system using a technique that researchers believe will uncover others that potentially harbor life.
The rocky, icy planet is about five-and-a-half times the mass of Earth and is located more than 20,000 light years away in the constellation Sagittarius, close to the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The discovery, detailed in the Jan. 26 issue of Nature, was made by a collaboration of astronomers worldwide, including the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) group co-founded by Princeton's Bohdan Paczynski.
Researchers do not believe that life could be sustained on the frigid new planet, which has an estimated surface temperature of minus 364 degrees Fahrenheit -- similar to Pluto's. The planet orbits its star at a distance of more than three times that of the Earth orbiting the sun; its star is about one-fifth the mass of our sun.
Jan 28, 2006
