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Solar System's 'look-alike'
found
Paul Rincon
BBC
Monday, April 7, 2008
Astronomers have discovered a planetary system orbiting
a distant star which looks much like our own.
They found two planets that were close matches for Jupiter and
Saturn orbiting a star about half the size of our Sun.
Martin Dominik, from St Andrews University in the UK, said the
finding suggested systems like our own could be much more common
than we thought.
(Article continues below)
And he told a major meeting that astronomers were on the brink
of finding many more of them.
The St Andrews researcher said this planetary system, and others
like it, could host terrestrial planets like Earth. It was just
a matter of time before such worlds were detected, he explained.
Dr Dominik told BBC News: "We found a system with two planets
that take the roles of Jupiter and Saturn in our Solar System.
These two planets have a similar mass ratio and similar orbital
radius and a similar orbital period.
"It looks like this may have formed in a similar way to
our Solar System. And if this is the case, it looks like [our]
Solar System cannot be unique in the Universe. There should be
other similar systems out there which could host terrestrial planets."
Dr Dominik presented his work at the Royal Astronomical Society's
National Astronomy Meeting in Belfast.
Full
article here.
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INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
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