Tariq Nelson

This is interesting. There could be planets surrounding every star.

European researchers said on Monday they discovered a batch of three “super-Earths” orbiting a nearby star, and two other solar systems with small planets as well.

They said their findings, presented at a conference in France, suggest that Earth-like planets may be very common.

“Does every single star harbor planets and, if yes, how many?” asked Michel Mayor of Switzerland’s Geneva Observatory. “We may not yet know the answer but we are making huge progress towards it,” Mayor said in a statement.

[...]

The planets are bigger than Earth — one is 4.2 times the mass, one is 6.7 times and the third is 9.4 times.

They orbit their star at extremely rapid speeds — one whizzing around in just four days, compared with Earth’s 365 days, one taking 10 days and the slowest taking 20 days.

[...]

Another solar system has a planet 22 times the mass of Earth, orbiting every four days, and a Saturn-like planet with a 3-year period.

“Clearly these planets are only the tip of the iceberg,” said Mayor.

“The analysis of all the stars studied with HARPS shows that about one third of all solar-like stars have either super-Earth or Neptune-like planets with orbital periods shorter than 50 days.”

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