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PlanetQuest

  1. The Kepler hardware has won some hardware of its own - big props from Popular Science and Popular Mechanics! http://is.gd/52LFS
  2. For those of you anticipating Kepler announcements, looks like the first finds will be announced in January...stay tuned!
  3. RT @nasaspaceplace Is there life on planets around other stars? Read a story in rhyme about a girl on a planet hunt. http://bit.ly/bgzxS.
  4. 32 Planets discovered! The count is now above 400, and who knows what Kepler's first set of results might bring...Props to the HARPS team!
  5. Also - WASP-18 b, which has the distinction of being the first dying planet found - it's got 1 mil. yrs. before SMACK - right into its star.
  6. Meanwhile, CoRoT has discovered the first confirmed terrestrial exoplanet! It's one of two super-Earth size planets that orbit the star.
  7. Ok, I'm back, and the planet news has piled up! For starters, cross WASP-9 off the exoplanet list - looks like it's actually a binary star.
  8. @LJespersen Transiting means that it passes directly between its star and the Earth - a pretty rare occurrence, most planets don't do that
  9. Now we've got a GIANT (biggest yet) planet that orbits the wrong way! The universe is apparently full of bad drivers. http://is.gd/2fz9u
  10. Wild week for exoplanets...first there was the planet train wreck discovered by Spitzer... http://is.gd/2fyU2
  11. @Adriana_Raven You just need the main Yahoo widgets program - http://widgets.yahoo.com/up... - download it there.
  12. @LJespersen Transiting planets are already really difficult to find, so a multi-planet system w/ 1 trans. planet is like winning the lotto!
  13. @justinf If you go to : http://is.gd/2fyvr, you can look up just about any planet and find its constellation, plus a bunch of other info....
  14. In this case,"b" is a roasting hot Jupiter with a 3-day orbit, and "c" is a portly 15xJupiter-mass planet with a super-eccentric orbit.
  15. HAT-13-b and c have people pretty excited-it's the first time a multi-planet system with one transiting planet has been discovered!
  16. @justinf HD 16760 could be a brown dwarf, which is bigger than a planet, but not quite massive enough to fuse hydrogen like a star.
  17. Another new one, HD 110014b, is a little bit smaller @ 11 Jup masses, and has a pretty eccentric, egg-shaped orbit around its star.
  18. New planets! HD 16760 is a whopping 14-Jupiter mass planet with a year about 100 days longer than Earth's. Massive!
  19. Interviewed Greg Laughlin about a planet that might serve as an extra gas tank that'll reignite its star...it's the top story on PlanetQuest
  20. @buffalodavid Right on!