Distant planets, smaller than gas giants, found
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BOSTON American scientists say they have discovered two of the smallest planets ever detected outside our solar system - a sign, they said, that they are on the right track in the quest to find Earth-like planets that could potentially support life.
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NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has spotted a dusty disc of material around a very small "failed star" called a brown dwarf, raising the possibility that there may be miniature solar systems in which planets orbit objects not much larger than planets, scientists said Monday.
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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.
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Among a batch of new planets, found by the Hubble telescope on a small patch of sky in Sagittarius, are as many as five that orbit their home stars in less than a day.
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Scientists said on Thursday they   have spotted an unusually large and light planet orbiting a   distant star -- a discovery that could force them to reexamine   theories about how planets are formed.
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WASHINGTON - Astronomers in the US say they&#39;ve discovered a new class of planets orbiting stars outside our solar system. The two &quot;exoplanets&quot; are small compared to earlier finds.
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A new class of planets has been  found orbiting stars besides our sun, in a possible giant leap  forward in the search for Earth-like planets that might harbor  life, scientists said on Tuesday.
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In a solar system thousands of light years away, a star about half the size of our sun is being orbited by two planets that seem like smaller versions of Jupiter and Saturn, astronomers report
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With a new spacecraft bound for Mercury, that tiny planet&nbsp;near the heart of the solar system, researchers are hoping to solve a slew of riddles about the small world.
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Two new moons orbiting between Mimas and Enceladus, discovered by the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens spacecraft, may be the smallest bodies so far seen around the ringed planet.
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WASHINGTON - A tiny telescope has spotted a giant planet circling a faraway star, using a technique that could open a new phase of planetary discovery.
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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 UK-led sky survey known as SuperWasp discovers two new planets orbiting far-distant stars.
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28 new planets orbiting distant stars beyond our solar system are detected by an international team.
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Astronomers have discovered four new planets in a week's time, an exciting end-of-summer flurry that signals a sharper era in the hunt for new worlds.    While none of these new bodies would be mistaken as Earth's twin, some appear to be noticeably smaller and more solid - more like Earth and Mars - than the gargantuan, gaseous giants identified before...
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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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It is the first planetary system that really looks like our own, with outer giant planets and room for smaller inner planets, astronomers say.