NASA Finds Multi-planet Solar System
Posted on 27. Aug, 2010 by Raven Schneizer in Other
NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has found its first multi-planet solar system, according to researchers who announced their findings on Thursday.
Dubbed the Kepler-9 system, it includes two Saturn-class worlds orbiting a star and a possible third planet thought to be slightly larger than Earth that whirls through a “year” in just 1.8 days.
The announcement came just a few days after a European team, using a different technique with a ground-based telescope, revealed the discovery of a solar system with up to seven planets, including a planet slightly larger than Earth.
“The Kepler mission has discovered two new planets orbiting the same star and actually there’s a third possible, or candidate, planet that may be transiting that star as well,” said William Borucki, the Kepler principal investigator. “It is the first discovery of (multiple) planets transiting the same star.
“The observation will give us new information about a system of orbiting planets that’s quite different from our own solar system. It gives us clues about the composition of these planets and actually helps us to search for other planets in the planetary system even though the planets don’t transit.”
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