Three new planets discovered!

Three new planets have been found orbiting a nearby star that is almost identical to the Sun.

The planets, forming a mini-solar system, circle the star 61 Virginis which is just 27.8 light years away and can be seen with the naked eye.

They have masses ranging from 5.3 to 24.9 times that of the Earth.

Full story at Yahoo News

(Apologies if this has been posted already, I did a quick search and couldn't spot anything.)

Exciting stuff, eh?

"Pandora" could be next

Very cool and thanks for sharing it.

S/F for you for your effort and energy.

Originally posted by sotp

Three new planets have been found orbiting a nearby star that is almost identical to the Sun.

The planets, forming a mini-solar system, circle the star 61 Virginis which is just 27.8 light years away and can be seen with the naked eye.

They have masses ranging from 5.3 to 24.9 times that of the Earth.

Full story at Yahoo News

Can be viewed by the naked eye? Sweet.
Now I just gotta find it...

Maybe one is just far enough from the star to have a climate similar to our own. That would be breaking news to me!


Good find.
*S&F*

It seems every other week new planets are being discovered. It is funny because not too long ago (say 60-100 years) we thought our solar system was so special and rare, now we have found MANY(granted none quite like ours YET) other solar systems with are relatively primitive optical technology. Very soon more sensitive equipment will be used that should be able to detect Earth-sized planets, and when(if) the new terrestrial planet hunter telescope goes up we will hopefully be able to detect much more detail from Earth-sized planets. Not to mention that some of these massive planets we already found could have life supporting moons, we just don't know.