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Old 26-08-2010, 08:29 PM
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CraigS
Unpredictable

CraigS is offline
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Australia
Posts: 3,023
Gee;

"Previous minimum masses for the planets given by radial velocity studies put the minimum mass for planet c at 2 Jupiters and for planet d at 4 Jupiters. The new, exact masses, found by astrometry are 14 Jupiters for planet c and 10 Jupiters for planet d."

Man that's a huge difference ! They say they improved the precision of Radial Velocity measurements by using one of the Hubble Fine Guidance Sensors (FGSs) on the Hubble Telescope, to come up with this result.

Got to make you wonder about the accuracy Radial Velocity measurements are in general (eg: galaxy RVs). Although, I suppose trying measure the RVs of a couple of planets 44 light years away might be fairly prone to error, however.

Interesting again.
Thanks Carl,
Cheers
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