It seems that two planets in the same system have been discovered, and they very closely resemble Jupiter and Saturn. Both of the newly discovered planets are about 80% of the size of their Solar System counterparts.
These planets are found orbiting a star that is smaller than our own but a few interesting things arise when looking at these planets. They both match the positions of Jupiter and Saturn. They both match the ratio of distance to the star and size of the star. Another item is that Saturn is about twice the distance to the sun than Jupiter is, and this is repeated with the new planets in the observed system. Many scientists are lead to believe that maybe planetary systems aren't all that uncommon, as shown by the discovered planets and their close ties to our own gas giants.
The system that the planets were found in is located about 5,000 light years away from Earth. At this range you might be wondering how these planets were even seen. The technique used to find the planets is called gravitational lensing. This is a fairly new technique and is becoming a popular way to look at objects. Gravitational lensing occurs when light passing by the object is bend by the gravity of that object. This bend light is measure and used to calculate sizes, and find other information.
Looks like ET may be out there yet!
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Saturn and Jupiter Have Twins!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Awesome. I've only heard of gravitational lensing when people are talking about black holes and dark matter. Now if only they can find another planet with life of some sort.
yeah, this is the first time I've heard of gravitational lensing used to find objects like this. Normally this is used, like you said, with black holes and entire galaxies. Seems a planet would be too small. Though I don't know a ton about how gravitational lensing is measured.
Post a Comment