Possibly nine planets around Sun lookalike

The Bad Astronomer writes "HD 10180 is a near-twin of the Sun about 130 light years away. It's known to have at least six planets orbiting it, but a new analysis of the data shows clear indications of three more, for a total of nine! This means HD 10180 has more planets than our solar system. And whether you think Pluto is a planet or not, all nine of these aliens worlds have masses larger than Earth's, putting them firmly in the 'planet' category."

Slashdot.org

About 40 percent of red dwarf stars have super-Earths

I should rename this blog 100 Billion Habitable Planets.

A European team said that about 40 percent of red dwarf stars - the most common type in the Milky Way - have a so-called "super-Earth" planet orbiting in a habitable zone that would allow water to flow on the surface. 

Since there are around 160 billion red dwarfs in the Milky Way, the number of worlds that are potentially warm enough and wet enough to support life is enormous.

'Tens of billions' of habitable exoplanets in Milky Way

Kepler discovers 26 new planets

Via Slashdot.org:

"NASA's Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified planets and triple the number of stars known to have more than one planet that transits, or passes in front of, the star. Such systems will help astronomers better understand how planets form."

NASA's Kepler Discovers 11 Systems Hosting 26 Planets

Russia Will Begin Hunt For Extrasolar Planets

Apparently they're going to do so using the transit method. Also, the article mentions Soviet telescopes... What?

“Scientists from the Pulkovo Observatory are planning to use ground-based instruments to study the transit of planets around their parent stars,” Zelyony said at a roundtable meeting at RIA Novosti headquarters in Moscow.

Russia Will Begin Hunt For Extrasolar Planets (Universe Today)

Identifying atmospheres around exoplanets

How Well Can Astronomers Study Exoplanet Atmospheres? (Universe Today) 

At this point, how well can astronomers study the atmosphere around an exoplanet? 

Currently, there are only a handful of methods researchers can use to make estimates of exoplanet atmospheres. Interestingly enough, one method makes use of the light coming from the host star. The basic principle is that the light from a star can be analyzed both before and after an exoplanet crosses in front of the star. By comparing the spectrum from the host star, and the spectrum of an exoplanet, the tell-tale signs of atmospheric contents can be detected.

Kepler discovers 26 planets in 11 systems, speeds up discovery of exoplanets

Credit: NASA Ames/Dan Fabrycky, UC Santa Cruz

Kepler is at it again with 26 confirmed planets. As expected, when you have a telescope with 2300+ candidate discoveries there's going to be a lot of confirmations... From NASA's Kepler website:

"Prior to the Kepler mission, we knew of perhaps 500 exoplanets across the whole sky," said Doug Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Now, in just two years staring at a patch of sky not much bigger than your fist, Kepler has discovered more than 60 planets and more than 2,300 planet candidates. This tells us that our galaxy is positively loaded with planets of all sizes and orbits." 

2012 will be a fun year to watch and I'm positive the 1000 number will be breached. Because Kepler is still a relatively young mission, it will take considerable time before planets with wide orbits (and longer periods between transits) will be detected--but I expect a lot of future detections there as well.

NASA's Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified Kepler planets and triple the number of stars known to have more than one planet that transits, or passes in front of, its host star. Such systems will help astronomers better understand how planets form. 

The planets orbit close to their host stars and range in size from 1.5 times the radius of Earth to larger than Jupiter. Fifteen of them are between Earth and Neptune in size, and further observations will be required to determine which are rocky like Earth and which have thick gaseous atmospheres like Neptune. The planets orbit their host star once every six to 143 days. All are closer to their host star than Venus is to our sun.

NASA's Kepler Announces 11 Planetary Systems Hosting 26 Planets

Scientific American: if planets can form somewhere, they will

Credit: Scientific American/NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech

Scientific American summarizes our changing views of the universe thanks to the past two decades of extrasolar planet discovery.

Planets in habitable zones, planets orbiting twin suns, miniature solar systems, rogue planets, planets, planets, planets. If there is one single piece of information you should take away from the recent flood of incredible exoplanetary discoveries it is this: Our universe makes planets with extraordinary efficiency – if planets can form somewhere, they will.

We’ve been sidling up on this fact for some time now, but it’s still a remarkable thing to acknowledge. Ten to fifteen years ago, as the first exoplanet detections began to come in, we understood that what we were seeing was potentially just the tip of the iceberg. These were massive objects (Jupiter sized or greater) and most of them were orbiting much closer to their parent stars than any equivalent giant planet in our solar system – hence the ‘hot Jupiter‘ moniker that is still used today. Statistics improved, as did our understanding of how detection techniques were biased towards finding these types of planets (owing to their greater gravitational influence on their parent stars), and estimates were made that suggested only a few percent of normal stars harbored such worlds.

An Abundance of Exoplanets Changes our Universe (Scientific American)