Hubble telescope captures new 'hot Jupiters'

[Pakage]

WASHINGTON - Astronomers have discovered a new class of planets outside the solar system that hug their parent stars so tightly they take less than a day to complete an orbit.

 

Using Nasa’s orbiting Hubble telescope, astronomers found between eight and 16 new planets near the center of the Milky Way that orbit their parent stars in as few as 10 hours. Their findings are published this week in the scientific journal Nature - and the first pictures are revealed here.

 

At 26,000 light-years away, they are the most distant planets yet found and a further indicator others are probably scattered throughout the Milky Way, said those involved in the project.

 

"This allows us to say with a high degree of confidence that there are billions of planets in our galaxy," Mario Livio, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Institute in Baltimore, said.

 

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thought this was pretty buzzy

[Grind]

Hardout! Been quite a year for galactic discovery hasn't it.

[Madz]

I feel sorry for Pluto. It can join my I-never-wanted-to-classified-as-a-planet-anyway club

[mike]

I think they changed the decision and it is still classified as a planet technically (think the official term is sub-planetoid or something lame like that)

 

Either way, I dont think they are going to rewrite the books for that one