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Thursday, June 19, 2008

Multiple Super-Earths Discovered in Single Star System.

In a solar system roughly 42 lightyears distant from the Solar System, orbiting a small star named HD 40307, a group of special planets has been discovered.

Called super-Earths, these are terrestrial--or rocky--planets with masses ranging from somewhat greater than that of Earth, but less than Uranus or Neptune. Whereas hundreds of gas giant exoplanets have been discovered since 1995, the number of super-Earths have to date been relatively few, although their number has just been boosted recently.

The newly discovered super-Earths around HD 40307 have been estimated to be 9.4, 6.7, and 4.2 times more massive than Earth. They have years of 20.4, 9.6, and 4.3 days. No news on whether or not any of them are in their star system's habitable zone, the region around a star warm enough for liquid water, but cool enough that the water does not turn into steam or boil off the planet. However, as they are all close to their star, and their primary is only slightly smaller than the Sun, it is a fair guess that the planets are too hot.

The exoplanets were discovered using the HARPS (High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher) spectrograph located at a Chilean observatory, and is run by the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

Along with the group of super-Earths in the HD 40307 system, 45 exoplanets classified as either super-Earths or small gas giants were revealed by the data from HARPS.

References
BBC
ESO
(within the links).

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