RE: Nearest star from the sun has earth like planet.
October 17, 2012 at 2:20 pm
(This post was last modified: October 17, 2012 at 2:23 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(October 17, 2012 at 1:25 pm)Welsh cake Wrote: Bloody hell, it took three years of observations to confirm Earth's nearest known exoplanet. Now that must have been a difficult analysis.
Basically, planets that are big, massive and orbits closer to its star are easier to detect. This planet orbits comparatively close to its star, but is quite small, and light weight, in comparsion to what we've been able to detect around other stars. It would not have been one of the easier ones to detect.
Planets that are smaller or further out can be extremely difficult to detect. So difficult that we can't even rule out that there might be undetected, earth sized planets out in and beyond the Keiper belt orbiting our own sun. We don't think there are, but we our available observation is not sufficient to rule that out.
