Interesting that a few days after Baumgartner breaks the warp barrier, we discover a planet orbiting the system Zephram Cochrane retired to. Coincidence? I think not! Patrick--I've heard that this news was broken prematurely due to a Croatian astronomer breaking the embargo on this press release. Nature and ESO wanted to release this tomorrow with lots of science writers backing this up with more information...do you know anything about that? (I guess I'm asking if in your role with NASA if you get this type of info early as well) Thanks, Dan On Oct 16, 2012, at 5:44 PM, Wiggins Patrick <paw@wirelessbeehive.com> wrote:
Planet Found in Nearest Star System to Earth
ESO’s HARPS instrument finds Earth-mass exoplanet orbiting Alpha Centauri B
European astronomers have discovered a planet with about the mass of the Earth orbiting a star in the Alpha Centauri system — the nearest to Earth. It is also the lightest exoplanet ever discovered around a star like the Sun. The planet was detected using the HARPS instrument on the 3.6-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. The results will appear online in the journal Nature on 17 October 2012.
The release, images and videos are available on: http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1241/
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