- MAUNA KEA, Hawaii (CNN-Reuters) -- Two new planets have been detected orbiting
distant stars, bringing to 12 the number of worlds detected beyond our
solar system.
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- Astronomers said Thursday the two planets
could provide clues to how planetary systems are formed, and aid the search
for extraterrestrial life.
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- "Make no mistake about it,"
said Geoffrey Marcy of San Francisco State University, who has helped find
nine of the 12 planets discovered since 1995.
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- "What we're all about is discovering
(planets) where evolution might have gotten a toehold."
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- They are the first planets discovered
by the enormous Keck telescope in Hawaii, the sharpest optical telescope
in the world. Marcy and a team that includes Paul Butler of the Anglo-Australian
Observatory are using the telescope to scan more than 400 stars for the
characteristic "wobble" caused by the gravitational effect of
planets on stars.
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- No images of these new discoveries are
available. In fact, scientists only know they exist because of the "wobble"
detected in the motion of the stars they're orbiting.
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- Astronomer Steven Vogt describes one
of the planets as "a real speedy son of a gun," orbiting its
star once every three days. That planet is dubbed HD 187-123.
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- But the second planet may yield more
valuable clues about the formation of solar systems and the universe. HD
210-277, which is about the size of Jupiter, has an Earth-like orbit.
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- The discovery of a dozen of these extra-solar
planets in the past three years in no way diminishes astronomers' delight
in each new discovery. Each one, Vogt said, is like a Rorschach test for
the theorists, offering plenty of ways to look at this brand-new material
and many new thoughts on the origins of the stars, their planets, their
orbits and their life spans.
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- British Student Shows
Nasa New Planet
From BBC Sci/Tech
- 9-25-98
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- A UK student has discovered a new planet orbiting around
a distant star by sifting through astronomical data in his spare time.
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- Undergraduate Kevin Apps, 25, has been credited with
the discovery by internationally-renowned "planet hunters" Geoff
Marcy and Paul Butler of the Nasa-funded WM Keck Observatory in Hawaii.
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- Kevin identified 30 new stars that could have planets
- and came up trumps on one of them.
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- Perhaps the most astonishing aspect of Kevin's find is
that until 1996 he worked in a factory making Duracell batteries and only
went to university because he was made redundant.
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- Kevin described to BBC News Online how he e-mailed Marcy
and Butler - the most successful planet hunters with nine of the 12 known
"extra-solar" planets to their names - to tell them they were
looking at the wrong stars.
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- Star 'wobble'
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- "In November 1997, I got hold of an astronomical
catalogue which lists 118,000 stars and went through it manually,"
he said.
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- "When I compared it to the list of 300 that Marcy
and Butler were investigating, I realised that 30 stars had been misclassified.
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- "It was a bit nerve-wracking e-mailing them - they
could have said 'mind your own business', but instead they checked it out
and found out I was right, so I said, 'Do you want me to choose 30 substitutes?'
and they accepted."
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- Kevin compiled a list of stars based on those most similar
to our own sun and e-mailed them to the Keck team.
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- On 19 July, the Keck Observatory, which houses the largest
telescope in the world, contacted Kevin to tell him they thought they had
found a planet orbiting one of his stars and they wanted to credit him.
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- 'Over the moon'
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- During the next two months, the Keck team measured the
"wobble" - caused by the gravitational pull of an orbiting planet
- of a star called HD 187123 in the constellation of Cygnus, and confirmed
that a new world roughly 200 times larger than Earth had been found, 154
light years away.
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- Kevin said: "I suppose you could say I was over
the moon.
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- "It's amazing. These guys have been doing this work
for 10 years and all I really did was suggest where they should look and
I end up getting credited as a co-discoverer."
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- Kevin has been fascinated by astronomy since he was seven
and had originally intended to accept a place at a London university to
study the subject after his A-levels, but it proved too expensive.
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- Instead, he took a job in a Duracell factory in his hometown
of Crawley in Surrey, where he worked for six years before being made redundant.
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- No 'Planet Kevin'
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- "I had some redundancy money and then my mum died.
Since I'd come into a bit of money, I thought I'd go to university,"
he said.
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- Kevin flew to Hawaii and visited the Keck Observatory
before taking up a degree in Physics and Astrophysics at Sussex University
in 1997. He is in his second year of the course.
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- He said the work that led to the discovery had nothing
to do with his university course, he just wanted to ensure that the Keck
telescope, which costs a dollar a second to run, "wasn't wasting any
time looking at the wrong stars".
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- Despite being credited with its discovery, Kevin doubts
the planet will be named after him.
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- "You just don't get things named after you anymore.
There's no real protocol for naming stars, so they'll probably call it
HD 187123 'B'," he said.
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- Kevin's success has earned him an unpaid position as
a researcher identifying stars likely to have orbiting planets.
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- Observatories around the world are currently investigating
300 stars suggested by Kevin.
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- Confirmation of the discovery of the new planet will
be published in the Proceedings of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
Journal in December.
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