(Exoplanet is short for "
extra-solar planet," which is a planet outside the solar system.) Astronomers would like to find a small, rocky planet not too far from or too close to its star--one that looks a lot like Earth.
"Finding the existence of water on an
extra-solar planet is a vital milestone along that road of discovery."
Gliese 581c is the smallest
extra-solar planet yet found.
Scientists believe the planet is 1.5 times larger and five times heavier than Earth, making it the smallest
extra-solar planet known.
Scientists believe it is only 1.5 times larger and five times more massive than Earth, making it the smallest
extra-solar planet known.
FOR THE FIRST TIME, amateur astronomers have made a major contribution to the discovery of a transiting
extra-solar planet. Such planets periodically cross the face of their parent star, causing a slight dip in brightness that generally lasts a few hours.
Scientists believe it is only 1.5 times larger and five times more massive than the earth, making it the smallest
extra-solar planet known.
The next section, "Other Solar Systems," follows Galileo's deathbed and jumps to the present to the discovery of the first
extra-solar planet. The section after that, "Tools for Astronomy," hops back to the development of various types of telescopes.
Michel Mayor of Geneva Observatory, the person who discovered the first
extra-solar planet around 51 Peg, discussed the effort underway to find planets of low mass around nearby stars such as [alpha] Cen B.
Their topics are here and now, user's guide to the sky: patterns and cycles, the origin of modern astronomy, light and telescopes, Sun light and Sun atoms, the terrestrial planets, the outer solar system, origin of the solar system and
extra-solar planets, the family of stars, the structure and formation of stars, the deaths of stars, the Milky Way galaxy, galaxies: normal and active, modern cosmology, and life on other worlds.
As ScienceAlert points out, the find, whenever it happens, would be a major breakthrough as not many
extra-solar planets have been spotted directly.