New Finds – 32 New Planets
Astronomer’s hard work has so far traced over 400 planets that orbit their parent stars. These bodies are termed “Exoplanets” and resemble our earth but most of them are 3-4 times larger than this earth and some giant ones over weigh Jupiter by 8 times.
The new finds around stars of varied nature opened debates on existing theories on planet forming process and their obscurity to the researchers. This low-mass earth like planets could exist throughout the Universe and nature continues to add more, as recently acknowledged.
We seem to come nearer to find “Life” soon in our neighborhood.
The Space Scientists now employ latest technology known as HARPS (High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planetary Researcher). They detect movements or disturbances of waves around stars, a sure sign of a planet. The dimmer dwarf stars have greater possibilities of having low-mass planets but massive giants out sizing Jupiter many times are there too, some with low-metal content – challenging present theory that metal-poor stars do not form planets.
HARPS has helped and speeded up new discovery process. Recently a few planets were discovered orbiting the star Gleise 581, a red dwarf star around 20.5 light years away. One of these Gleise 581c is referred to resemble our earth with “Life” possibilities.
Further details on these Exoplanets will be available in near future by 2010.