New discovery: earth-mass planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B

[04Stefan07]

http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1241/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EsoTopNews+%28 ESO+Top+News%29

[allan gould]

Link doesn't work

[Baddad]

Link works for me.:thumbsup:

Cheers

[cometcatcher]

Try http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1241/

[allan gould]

Thanks for that

[MrB]

Neither link worked for me, but then neither did any links provided via a google search.
I think maybe ESO's site can't handle the traffic.

Regarding the planet around Alpha Cent B.... I always thought all these UFO's and Aliens were coming from somewhere nearby :lol:

EDIT: Kevin's link (http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1241/) did eventually work for me, took some time and a few refreshes tho.

[04Stefan07]

Sorry about the link issue everyone, just clicked on it and it worked for me. Not sure why it doesn't work for some.

[rustigsmed]

A 3 day year, it's a wonder it hasn't been hammer thrown out of the system at the speed and angle it must be travelling at!
Very interesting, thanks for the link.

[Barrykgerdes]

I had trouble with the link in IE8 but it worked OK in firefox.

In any case there should be another planet liveable there somewhere because according to "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy", the only "reliable" source of space info, that is where the notice was placed regarding the demolition of Earth.:thumbsup::lol:

Barry

[bojan]

Well, this only the first one in this system...
The methodology used was still the standard one.. anything of similar mass, further from the star would not be possible to detect using that method.

[seeker372011]

Exciting

[Ric]

A very interesting read

Cheers for the link.

[TrevorW]

Alpha Centauri is one of the brightest stars in the southern skies and is the nearest stellar system to our Solar System — only 4.3 light-years away.

Not quite correct Proxima in closer

[/URL] A third star, known as [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centauri"]Proxima Centauri (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Centauri#cite_note-S-9), Proxima or Alpha Centauri C (α Cen C), is probably gravitationally associated with Alpha Centauri AB. Proxima is at the slightly smaller distance of 1.29 parsecs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsec) or 4.21 light years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_years) from the Sun, making it the closest star to the Sun, even though it is not visible to the naked eye

[MrB]

Trevor, you are right, though I think the key word(s) here is 'Stellar system'
Also from the link: (though it does say 'more distant' :shrug:)
"....a system consisting of two stars similar to the Sun orbiting close to each other, designated Alpha Centauri A and B, and a more distant and faint red component known as Proxima Centauri"

[andyc]

If there's intelligent life on that world, it's fair to say they probably invented sunblock before the wheel...

It does make looking at Alpha Cen in the scope all the more interesting!