From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4_at_msn.com)
Date: Sun Oct 14 2007 - 17:15:21 PDT
New Worlds on the Horizon: Earth-Sized Planets Close to Other Stars
Authors: Eric Gaidos, Nader Haghighipour, Eric Agol, David Latham, Sean
Raymond, John Rayner
(Submitted on 11 Oct 2007)
Abstract: The search for habitable planets like Earth around other stars
fulfils an ancient imperative to understand our origins and place in the
cosmos. The past decade has seen the discovery of hundreds of planets, but
nearly all are gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn. Recent advances in
instrumentation and new missions are extending searches to planets the size
of the Earth, but closer to their host stars. There are several possible
ways such planets could form, and future observations will soon test those
theories. Many of these planets we discover may be quite unlike Earth in
their surface temperature and composition, but their study will nonetheless
inform us about the process of planet formation and the frequency of
Earth-like planets around other stars.
Comments: to appear in Science, October 12, 2007
Subjects: Astrophysics (astro-ph)
Cite as: arXiv:0710.2366v1 [astro-ph]
Submission history
From: Eric J. Gaidos [view email]
[v1] Thu, 11 Oct 2007 23:58:24 GMT (271kb)
http://arxiv.org/abs/0710.2366
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