Small planets breathe life into old quest
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The universe looked a little more familiar and friendlier. The roll call of planets beyond the solar system swelled significantly with the announcement of a trio of newly-discovered worlds much smaller than any previously discovered around other stars.
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MAUNA KEA, Hawaii -- The sharpest image ever taken of a dust disk around another star has revealed structures in the disk which are signs of unseen planets.     Dr...
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Three new planets have been discovered in other solar systems that are the closest ever found to Earth in size, scientists announced today, marking an important step in the search for planets that could support life elsewhere in the universe.
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Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have photographed one of the smallest objects ever seen around a normal star beyond our Sun. Weighing in at 12 times the mass of Jupiter, the object is small enough to be a planet.
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A newfound planet detected by a small, 4-inch-diameter telescope demonstrates that we are at the cusp of a new age of planet discovery. Soon, new worlds may be located at an accelerating pace, bringing the detection of the first Earth-sized world one step closer.
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Two old stars appear to be generating planets long after the normal period, astronomers say.
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Signs of ancient eruptions indicate a planet geologically active and may suggest presence of simple life forms. By Peter N. Spotts | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor.
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European scientists have found a planet circling a distant star that could be home to life. The planet, the first detected so far that is enough like Earth for life to develop, orbits a star called mu Arae in the southern constellation Altar.
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Two old stars appear to be gearing up for a second generation of planet formation, a phenomenon astronomers say they have never seen before.
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Planet hunters have found two worlds roughly the mass of Neptune, each orbiting a star within 30 light-years of our solar system. The planets are likely gaseous or mixtures of ice and rock, but they might be barren rock worlds like Mercury.
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Evidence is mounting that    the time-weathered red planet was once a warm and water-rich world. And a Mars    awash with water gives rise to that globe possibly being fit for habitation    in its past - and perhaps a distant dwelling for life today.
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European scientists have discovered what they describe as the smallest Earth-like planet orbiting a star outside our Solar System.
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Astronomers announce recent discoveries of two Earth-like planets.
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LOS ANGELES - It may take much longer than scientists have thought for violent turbulence to turn grains of space dust into new planets.    A NASA telescope recently discovered evidence that the most violent part of the process in forming an Earth-sized planet - the collisions between colossal chunks of rock - may last hundreds of millions of years instead of 10 million years, scientists said Monday at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif...
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A University of Colorado study has embarked on demonstrating that new planets can be found with the help of an orbiting starshade. The method has been compared to building a giant pinhole camera in space.
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The race to find distant new âEarthsâ heated up considerably yesterday with the detection of two of the smallest planets ever detected outside the Solar System.
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Astronomers have yet to find an Earth-size planet beyond our solar system, but that hasn&#39;t stopped them from modeling what these worlds might look like.