Tuesday, May 11, 2010

New Planet Found; May Be Cosmic Rosetta Stone

A new gas-giant planet has been discovered 1500 light years away from the Earth. This is the first Jupiter-like planet that has been found outside of our solar system. Every 95 days, the planet Corot-9b passes in front of it's star. The light of the planet's star goes through its own atmosphere before contuining to Earth. Astronomers could possibly discover what molecules make up Corot-9b by studying the filtered starlight. Corot-9b could become a Rosetta Stone for research about other exoplanets.

I think that it is amazing that there are so many planets out there. If that planet is like Jupiter, than it is probably alot bigger than the Earth. I hope that astronomers will keep researching and discovery new planets and maybe even other solar systems outside of ours.

No comments:

Post a Comment