An avalanche of alien planets

[n2doc]

Researchers have confirmed the existence of six new planets beyond our solar system, with hundreds of other new worlds potentially waiting in the wings.

The latest planetary prospects come from two different planet-hunting probes: the European CoRoT satellite and NASA's Kepler spacecraft. CoRoT's science team has confirmed the detection of 15 planets so far, including CoRoT-7b, a "lava planet" that's only five times as massive as Earth but traces a hellishly close orbit around its parent star.

The six new planets are all bigger than CoRoT-7b, but reflect the wide diversity that planetary scientists are finding as they sift through an avalanche of data. There's even a brown dwarf in the bunch - a celestial object that's considered too big to be a planet, but too small to be a fully functioning star.

"Each of these planets is interesting in its own right, but what is really fascinating is how diverse they are," Oxford University's Suzanne Aigrain, a co-investigator on the research team, said in a university news release about the discoveries. "Planets are intrinsically complex objects, and we have much to learn about them yet."

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http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/06/15/4512943-an-avalanche-of-alien-planets


A graphic shows the comparative sizes and orbital distances of the first 15 planets discovered by the COROT satellite. Size and distance are not shown on the same scale.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Figure looks like the Rigel Concourse.