Originally posted by DavRedf
Following the discovery of a new planet by european astronomers last week, American astronomers have gone one better and found 2 new planets.
https://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5876835/?GT1=5100
Any advance on 2?
David
Almost all planets discovered so far are in an unusual configuration: they are gas giants close to the star. The lighter gasses tend to coalesce first as the proto-star cools, and so gas giants usually will form farther out more often. There are probably far more of this configuration out there.
Gas giants close in will disrupt smaller, denser planets forming in the region where those elements coalesce, near the habitable region. The more likely case, with the gas giants farther out, means rocky core planets are more likely nearer in.
Chances are that there are far more earth type (may or may not be earth like) planets that we just can't see yet.
Yet. If they could keep Hubble working long enough they could create an interferometer out of it, Webb and Spitzer, synthesize an arpeture of 500 miles, and see such planets directly. I give it 20 years outside before we know of at least one earth sized planet in the star's habitable zone, and I'd bet on less than 10.
