Number of out-of-this-world planets shoots past 400

William Atkins
Monday, 19 October 2009 19:22

Science - Space

HARPS was installed onto the ESO telescope in 2003. It is able to locate these exoplanets by measuring the nearly imperceptable forward (approaching) and backward (receding) movements of stars caused by planets orbiting about them.

In the case of HARPS, it is able to detect changes in the radial velocity of stars as small as 3.5 kilometers per hour.

These 75 exoplanets are found within thirty different planetary systems.

Swiss astronomer (from the Geneva Observatory) Stéphane Udry, who made the announcement of these 32 newly discovered exoplanets, states, "HARPS is a unique, extremely high precision instrument that is ideal for discovering alien worlds," says Stéphane Udry, who made the announcement. “We have now completed our initial five-year programme, which has succeeded well beyond our expectations.” [ESO]

This discovery of 32 exoplanets was announced on October 19, 2009, at the ESO/CAUP conference “Towards Other Earths: perspectives and limitations in the ELT era", which is being held in Porto, Portugal, from October 10-23, 2009.

It was also announced at the international symposium “Heirs of Galileo: Frontiers of Astronomy,“ being held in Madrid, Spain.

In addition, the results of this discovery will be published as a series of eight papers in a future issue of the Astronomy and Astrophysics journal.

To learn more about exoplanets, read the Space.com article “Top 10 Most Intriguing Exosolar Planets.”