Fifty New Planets Found—Largest Haul Yet

[Judi Lynn]

Source: National Geographic

Fifty New Planets Found—Largest Haul Yet
Discoveries include 16 Earthlike planets, astronomers say..

Ker Than
for National Geographic News
Published September 12, 2011

Fifty new alien worlds, including 16 "super Earths," have been found—the largest extrasolar planet haul announced at one time, astronomers say.

The discoveries bring the total number of known extrasolar planets, or exoplanets, to 645.

"The harvest of discoveries ... has exceeded all expectations, and includes an exceptionally rich population of super-Earths and Neptune-type planets hosted by stars very similar to our sun," study leader Michel Mayor, an astronomer at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, said in a statement.

One of the newly discovered worlds, dubbed HD 85512b, lies at the edge of its star's habitable zone—the region around a star where liquid water, and thus life as we know it, can exist.

Read more: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/09/110912-exoplanets-super-earths-space-science-new-planets-found/

[SkyDaddy7]

1. Excellent! Check this out is you have an iPhone/iPad/iPod

This app is really cool if you are interested in extrasolar planets!

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/exoplanet/id327702034?mt=8


Description

The "Exoplanet App" is a daily updated database of all discovered extrasolar planets. It has been developed and is maintained by a professional astronomer.

Main features:
* Database with physical parameters of every known exoplanet.
* Interactive visualisations and animations.
* Real images of all directly imaged exoplanets
* Interactive 3D plot shows the position of all exoplanets in our Milky Way. You can zoom into any planetary system. Or zoom out and see local galaxy clusters and the microwave background.
* Push notifications are sent out whenever a new planet is discovered.
* Interactive multi-touch correlation plots.
* Extensive background information on exoplanets and detection methods.
* Direct links to over 50.000 scientific publications

Feel free to send any comments and suggestions to [e-mail]

You can also follow exoplanet announcements and updates on http://twitter.com/ExoplanetApp

*******************************
Features:

* Physical properties of all detected exo-planets and their host stars, updated on a daily basis
* Links to over 50.000 scientific publications (via NASA ADS)
* Easily search and filter the database
* Real telescope images of the host star
* Visualisations of the orbits and the habitable zone
* Interactive 3D size comparison to planets of our own solar system
* Animation of the detection method (radial velocity/transit)
* Sky charts of the planet's position in the night sky including constellations
* 3D visualisation of the position of all exoplanets in the galactic coordinate system
* Animations of the orbital motion of all planetary systems
* Correlation diagrams can be created on the fly
* Screen mirroring to an external display (requires iPad 2)
* Backwards compatible to iOS 3.1.3
* High resolution graphics for the iPhone4's Retina display
* Push notifications (can be turned off at any time in the Settings App)

[Peace Patriot]

2. Thanks, SkyDaddy7! nt

[SkyDaddy7]

5. Sure...You're welcome. nt.

[awoke_in_2003]

3. I am at work...

and can't visit iTunes- how much is the download?

[SkyDaddy7]

4. It is FREE! nt.

[awoke_in_2003]

8. Woo Hoo....

I will be downloading it the minute I get home.

[vrp]

7. And

all these planets are Republican free zones.

[New Earth]

6. 16 more of me!

<<<<

[Quantess]

9. Cool!

[Odin2005]

10. K&R

[Blandocyte]

11. Don't get too excited. Many could be enemy planets! nt

[wordpix]

12. now if we'd only get as excited about biodiversity here on Earth, we'd get somewhere

Are we going to wreck the habitable zone planets, too?

[DavidDvorkin]

13. We're very unlikely to ever go to them

Moreover, if they can support life, it's quite likely that they do. And that that life is already doing its part to destroy those biospheres.

[Dover]

14. Anybody seen the movie out now called "New Earth"?

"Another Earth" is a film animated by one stunning image: A new planet four times the size of the moon appears in the sky of Earth. This startling apparition gives a deeper meaning to everything in the story, especially when it is discovered, that the planet is indeed, as the title promises, another Earth. Perhaps not a second Earth however, but the very same Earth, in another universe that has now become visible.
more - http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110727/REVIEWS/110729984/0/RSS