For years astronomers have scanned the heavens beyond the solar system in search planets. Evidence is rapidly accumulated they greatly increase the possibility that some of the planets astronomers reported may be similar to the earth The US. and Canadian tantalizing discoveries that strengthened that ikelihood.
The U.S. team, led by David Latham of the Smithsonian Astrophysical observatory in cambridge, Mass., found evidence of what might be a gigantic planet 20 times as large as Jupiter orbiting a star 550 trillion miles away. The Canadians reported nine stars with possible planets within 588 trillion miles of earth they calculated that one of them was about the size of Jupiter.
Because the suspected planets are lost in the glare of the stars they orbit, they could not actually be seen. Instead, the astronomers analyzed the shifts of light in the spectrum associated with a star as it moves. A shift toward red means the source is moving away from the observer, toward blue that it is moving toward him. By careful measuring these colour shifts, astronomers detected a characteristic wobble in the motion of the stars that could be caused by the gravitational pull of a nearby orbiting body.
The purported sightings of new planets have generated a good deal of excitement. Latham's especially, seemed stronger than the others because it was confirmed independently, in this case by a European team in Geneva that had been observing the same star. But the "alleged planet," says Latham is "hotter than an oven" and has noxious, gaseous atmosphere. Says he: "This is not a place you would look for life."
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