Tiniest extrasolar planet found

[Notebook]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7432114.stm

It would also be extremely dim if one were to stand on its surface.

I assume the ambient light, not the planet?

N.

 

[Hartmann]

"so the top of the planet's atmosphere is likely to be colder than Pluto. It would also be extremely dim if one were to stand on its surface.!"

The atmosphere....

Cool planet, perhaps some civilizations live underwater in giant planets.

 

[Linguofreak]

"Tiny" is hardly a word I'd use to describe a planet of 3.3 Earth masses, but "tiny" is, I suppose, relative.

 

[YL3GDY]

Surely it's the smallest extrasolar planet. But relatively to the star (brown dwarf, with mass about 150 Jupiter masses or a bit heavier) it's quite big. And I guess that the method of beam speed measurment was used to discover this planet.

 

[Linguofreak]

Surely it's the smallest extrasolar planet. But relatively to the star (brown dwarf, with mass about 150 Jupiter masses or a bit heavier) it's quite big. And I guess that the method of beam speed measurment was used to discover this planet.

It's the smallest for sure, but using "tiniest" instead of "smallest" here, when you're refering to a planet 3 times the size of Earth just seems weird. Even though "tiny" is relative, it conveys more of a sense of absolute smallness than "small."

As far as detection method for this planet, I think it was lensing, but I may be confusing it with another recent discovery.

 

[eveningsky339]

I believe the method of detecting extrasolar planets involves measuring a star's "tilt" because of the gravitational pull of the planets. Most of the planets detected by this method have been obviously quite huge. So, 3.3 Earth masses really is tiny compared to these other behemoths.