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A newly discovered exoplanet is the first such alien world to resemble the planets in our own solar system, researchers announced Wednesday. The planet, dubbed CoRoT-9b, was found to be about the size of Jupiter and situated at an orbit similar to Mercury, which is the innermost planet in our solar system.

The confirmation of the nature of CoRoT-7b as the first rocky planet outside our Solar System marks a significant step forward in the search for Earth-like exoplanets. The detection by CoRoT and follow-up radial velocity measurements with HARPS suggest that this exoplanet, CoRoT-7b, has a density similar to that of Mercury, Venus, Mars and Earth making it only the fifth known terrestrial planet in the Universe.

Mass and density of smallest exoplanet finally measured The longest set of HARPS measurements ever made has firmly established the nature of the smallest and fastest-orbiting exoplanet known, CoRoT-7b, revealing its mass as five times that of Earth's. Combined with CoRoT-7b's known radius, which is less than twice that of our terrestrial home, this tells us that the exoplanet's density is quite similar to the Earth's, suggesting a solid, rocky world. The extensive dataset also reveals the presence of another so-called super-Earth in this alien solar system. "This is science at its thrilling and amazing best," says Didier Queloz,...

Astronomers have confirmed that a planet orbiting a distant star has a rocky structure similar to that of Earth, a find that shortens the odds on extraterrestrial life being discovered. New observations of a planet named Corot-7b, which circles a star 500 light years away in the constellation Monoceros, or the Unicorn, have shown that its density is similar to the Earth’s, indicating that it is also a solid, rocky world. The discovery is important for the prospects of discovering life elsewhere because Corot-7b is the first exoplanet — a planet beyond our solar system — orbiting another star that...

Astronomers observing exoplanets around other stars may be underestimating their size, according to a German study. The researchers believe the error may be due to active stars adding 'noise' to the observation of exoplanets using the transit method... The transit method detects exoplanets as they pass in front of their parent star, reducing the amount of light reaching telescopes on, and orbiting, Earth. Although the transit method isn't the best method for detecting exoplanets, it provides a reliable estimate of its size and mass. PhD student Stefan Czesla of the Hamburg Observatory in Germany, and colleagues, examined the giant exoplanet...

« A symposium called Crossroads: The Future of Human Life in the Universe seems timely about now (the site has been down all morning but should be up soon). With the Kepler mission undergoing calibration and CoRoT actively searching for small extrasolar worlds, we’re probably within a few dozen months of the detection of an Earth-like world around another star (and maybe, by other methods, much closer). This is sometimes referred to as the ‘Holy Grail’ of planetary sciences, but as soon as we accomplish it, a new ‘Grail’ emerges: The discovery of life on these worlds. And then...

The planet, known as Exo-7b, lies about 390 light years away and orbits a star slightly smaller and cooler than the Sun... The method revealed the world's tiny size, but could not pin down its mass precisely. To do that, researchers must search for the subtle wobbles the orbiting planet induces in its host star, a difficult task since the star's own roiling activity can mask the subtle gravitational tugs of a lightweight planet. Nonetheless, it weighs in the neighbourhood of several Earths, which puts it in the running for the lightest exoplanet known to orbit a normal star. (A...

Researchers are racing to find the first planet that might support life as we know it.Gliese 876 is a modest star, just one-third the mass of our sun and only 15 light-years away, but it has a history-making planetary system all its own. In 1998 a team led by Geoff Marcy of the University of California at Berkeley detected the first sign of something interesting there: a giant planet, twice the mass of Jupiter, circling Gliese 876 once every two months, its gravity yanking the star back and forth at the speed of a jet plane. Three years later the...

Astronomers have discovered a new planet about the same size as Jupiter, it was announced today. The planet, which has been given the less-than-romantic name CoRot-Exo-4b, was spotted by a European space mission. It forms part of the Monoceros constellation - the Unicorn - and lies about 3,000 light years from our solar system. Astronomers believe it is mostly made up of gas and has a similar composition to Jupiter.

Astronomers on Brink of Watershed in Planet Discoveries By Robert Roy Britt Senior Science Writer posted: 07:00 am ET 24 June 2002 WASHINGTON, D.C. - The first phase of a two-decade hunt for planets around other stars ended this month with announcements of the discovery of two planets in Jupiter-like orbits, proving that our solar system has cousins, at least of the distant variety. Now it is census time. The world's top planet hunters are rushing headlong into Phase II, during which they expect the number of known extrasolar planets to rise dramatically from its present total of about...