Two new planets outside solar system examined

The closest of the two planets studied, HD 189733b, is 360 trillion miles from Earth in the constellation Vulpecula.

So far, scientists have found 213 planets outside our solar system — they are called exoplanets. But only eight or nine are in the right orbit and location for the type of study reported by three teams using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.

The two suns the planets orbit closely have hydrogen and oxygen, the stable building blocks of water. The planets’ atmospheres — examined for the first time using light spectra to determine the air’s chemical composition — are supposed to be made up of the same thing, good old H2O.

LINK

quite exiting to see how many planets there are in proximity to the solar system. i wounder how many of them already have microbial life?

[edit on 21-2-2007 by misterfantastic]

Off the top of my head (going bed in a min so prob wrong)

1 light year = 6 to the 12 (5,865,696,000,000 miles)
This planet = 360 to the 12, so apx 60 light years away (360,000,000,000,000 miles)

So if you were to send them a rude message through Morse code, with a massively strong laser, in 120 years you would get a rude response. Great.

this news is actually decently big, as it is the first time as a race we have been able to get a planets "signature" from beyond our solar system. Also added was that scientists did not think this would be possible so soon.

A good sign that we may be finding loads of planets outside our solar system very very soon!