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MIT study on exoplanets


Moontanman

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An exoplanet study by MIT suggests that rocky Earth sized worlds are likely to be in stable circular orbits similar to the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Many larger exoplanets have orbits wildly out of sync with the regular orbits of our own solar system. This study suggest that more Earth sized planets with regular circular orbits maybe closer to the norm for planets in that size range.

 

http://www.gizmag.com/earth-sized-exoplanets-circular-orbits/37815/

 

A team of researchers from MIT and Aarhus University, Denmark, have discovered that Earth-sized exoplanets orbit their parent stars in the same way that our planet orbits our own Sun – maintaining a roughly equidistant circular orbit. The discovery further narrows the characteristics of worlds that could potentially play host to extraterrestrial life.

Astronomers have long wondered whether the highly-structured orbital trend displayed in our solar system was simply the norm, or the result of an amazing coincidence. A new study that examined the orbits of 74 exoplanets orbiting 28 distant stars appears to put the question to rest.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Came across this the other day, smallest exoplanet.

 

 

Kepler-138 b: the first exoplanet smaller than Earth with both it mass and size measured. All three transiting exoplanets of Kepler-138 have been characterized by their transits as they pass in front of the star each orbit. http://www.seti.org/seti-institute/press-release/discovery-mars-size-world-uses-tug-war-technique?u
A novel corollary of interacting planets is that they are, quite obviously, endlessly perturbing one another’s orbital period.

“Any extraterrestrials living in these systems would have to be expert watch makers,” says Rowe, “because the length of their year is always changing. In this case by hours, but in some others, by days.”

Edited by sunshaker
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