Fifty new alien worlds revealed

Always something new and exciting in space.

Cosmic Log/MSNBC
European astronomers have announced the discovery of more than 50 new planets beyond our solar system, including 16 that are just a notch above our own planet in mass. They say their record-breaking findings suggest that more than half of the stars like our sun possess planets, and that many of those worlds are less massive than Saturn.
The pick of the litter is a planet that's already been in the spotlight: HD 85512 b, a world at least 3.6 times as massive as Earth that's located 36 light-years away in the constellation Vela. HD 85512 b is the only one of the 16 super-Earths on today's list that is located in its star system's habitable zone. That's the area around a star where scientists believe water could exist in liquid form, which would make a rocky planet potentially livable.
HD 85512 b's status came to light a couple of weeks ago in a paper submitted to the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, but the team behind the discovery provided more details about that super-Earth and the dozens of other worlds in papers presented today at the Extreme Solar Systems II conference in Wyoming.
The findings came from the team behind the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, or HARPS, which is installed at the European Southern Observatory's 11.8-foot (3.6-meter) La Silla Observatory in Chile.

Exoplanet spotted in motion around its 'sun'

Always something new being found out in the field of Astronomy .



Beta Pictoris b, a gas giant about nine times the mass of Jupiter, is one of only a few to be detected by direct imaging.

BBC

Astronomers say they have followed, for the first time, an extra-solar planet in orbit around a young white star.

The team used the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile to track the motion of a gas giant Beta Pictoris b.

The planet's "sun" is also believed to be the youngest star to host a planet.

The find shows that Jupiter-like giants can form near stars in much shorter time-spans than previously thought, the scientists report in Science journal.

Astronomers have so far spotted some 450 extra-solar planets (exoplanets).

32 New Planets Found Outside Our Solar System

And speaking of all things Alien , 32 more exoplanets discovered !
That is just amazing , This is the biggest field of Astronomy their is right now , it will not be long and we will start seeing Images of Exoplanets !

....National Geographic

Astronomers have added 32 new planets to the list of planets found orbiting stars outside our solar system.

The discoveries, announced today at a press briefing in Portugal, increase to more than 400 the number of known extrasolar planets, or "exoplanets."
The 32 previously unseen planets range from five times the mass of Earth up to eight times the mass of Jupiter, scientists said.

In addition, the new planets were found around different types of stars, challenging existing theories for where and how planets form.

Overall, the research suggests that 40 to 60 percent of all planetary systems in the universe contain low-mass planets.

Since lower masses most likely mean Earthlike sizes, such planets are considered to be the best candidates in the search for extraterrestrial life. (Related pictures: "3 Worlds Most Likely to Harbor Life Named.")

"The models are predicting even larger numbers of low-mass planets like Earth, so I am pretty confident that there are Earth-type planets everywhere," said team member Stephane Udry of the Observatory of Geneva in Switzerland.

"Nature doesn't like a vacuum," he added, "so if there is space to put a planet, it will put the planet there.