Planets Galore
By Catherine Scullion
The recent humiliating demotion of Pluto has been compounded by the discovery of 16 candidate planets outside of the solar system by the Hubble telescope survey.
The work, published in the journal Nature, concentrated on a relatively small, but crowded, area of our galaxy. If the results are extrapolated over the entire Milky Way it seems likely that an incredible 6 billion Jupiter-sized planets await discovery.
A number of the new planets represent an entirely new type of the celestial bodies which orbit their stars with a time period of less than one day! Kailash Sahu, the leader of the research team, described the discovery of these Ultra-Short-Period Planets (USPPs), as ‘a big surprise.’ Even the Hubble Telescope is unable to get a direct view of the planets. Instead they were found by measuring changes in light emitted by stars, as this indicates a transit across the star by a planet. The discoveries were made during an international Hubble survey, the Sagittarius Window Eclipsing Extrasolar Planet Search (SWEEPS). Characteristics of the new extreme planets are beginning to be puzzled out by the team. One has had its surface temperature estimated at around 1650 degrees C as it orbits just 1.2 million km from its star.
The planets also offer a wealth of naming possibilities. However, the christening of Daffy and its fellows has been put on hold for the time being - the research team are moving with caution to ensure the bodies are planets, before repeating the pain of another Pluto. Email us your name suggestions in the box below.
Here's a pretty, but completely incomprehensible view of planet-tastic space.
To read more about Catherine or to view more of her articles click here
The work, published in the journal Nature, concentrated on a relatively small, but crowded, area of our galaxy. If the results are extrapolated over the entire Milky Way it seems likely that an incredible 6 billion Jupiter-sized planets await discovery.
A number of the new planets represent an entirely new type of the celestial bodies which orbit their stars with a time period of less than one day! Kailash Sahu, the leader of the research team, described the discovery of these Ultra-Short-Period Planets (USPPs), as ‘a big surprise.’ Even the Hubble Telescope is unable to get a direct view of the planets. Instead they were found by measuring changes in light emitted by stars, as this indicates a transit across the star by a planet. The discoveries were made during an international Hubble survey, the Sagittarius Window Eclipsing Extrasolar Planet Search (SWEEPS). Characteristics of the new extreme planets are beginning to be puzzled out by the team. One has had its surface temperature estimated at around 1650 degrees C as it orbits just 1.2 million km from its star.
The planets also offer a wealth of naming possibilities. However, the christening of Daffy and its fellows has been put on hold for the time being - the research team are moving with caution to ensure the bodies are planets, before repeating the pain of another Pluto. Email us your name suggestions in the box below.
Here's a pretty, but completely incomprehensible view of planet-tastic space.
To read more about Catherine or to view more of her articles click here
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