Scientists found a planet.
Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena said a fifth planet had been found circling 55 Cancri, a star located 41 light years from Earth in the Cancer constellation.
Geoff Marcy, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley, said the discovery showed that other solar systems similar to the one in which Earth is located might be discovered in other reaches of outer space.
“This discovery of the first ever quintuple planetary system has me jumping out of my socks,” Marcy told a teleconference call.
“The significance is marvellous. We now know that our sun and its family of planets is not unusual.
“It shows that our Milky Way contains billions of planetary systems … we strongly suspect that many of these planetary systems harbour Earth-like planets.”
The newly discovered planet is about 45 times the mass of Earth and is believed to be be similar to Saturn in its composition and appearance, a statement said.
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Scientists found a planet.
Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena said a fifth planet had been found circling 55 Cancri, a star located 41 light years from Earth in the Cancer constellation.
Geoff Marcy, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley, said the discovery showed that other solar systems similar to the one in which Earth is located might be discovered in other reaches of outer space.
“This discovery of the first ever quintuple planetary system has me jumping out of my socks,” Marcy told a teleconference call.
“The significance is marvellous. We now know that our sun and its family of planets is not unusual.
“It shows that our Milky Way contains billions of planetary systems … we strongly suspect that many of these planetary systems harbour Earth-like planets.”
The newly discovered planet is about 45 times the mass of Earth and is believed to be be similar to Saturn in its composition and appearance, a statement said.
afp
Stumble it!
This entry was posted
on Thursday, November 8th, 2007 at 1:16 pm and is filed under main, scientists say....
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.