Citizen scientist inspired by the television programStargazing Livehave found four rocky planet crammed together in wet orbits around a star . Many other potential major planet outside the Solar System have also been detected in just 48 hours .
of late the Australian Broadcasting Corporation aired Brian Cox and a mix of diary keeper and professional and amateur uranologist , discussing the wonders of the sky . The show , base onsimilar eventsheld in the UK , featured discourse of ways viewers could get involve . Along with advice on where to look and how to take astronomic pic , the syllabus promoted the chance to aid litigate Kepler Space Telescope data , look for angle of dip in adept ' brightness that indicate planets draw a blank some of their light source .
The political program led to a spike in participant on theZooniverseplatform , with the web site ’s Facebook pageannouncingthat within 24 time of day a million classifications had been take , including some “ very hopeful possible planets ” . The undermentioned day Zooniversereportedconfirmation of four satellite orbiting the star EE-1 located 600 light - years away in Aquarius .
Zooniverse principle investigator Dr Chris Lintott told the ABC the four planets may just be the beginning for the EE-1 arrangement . " They ’re all much close to the star than even Mercury is to the Sun , " hesaid , raising the possibility of enough satellite further out to surpassTrappist-1’sseven , or our own Solar System ’s eight .
In a week when we ’ve discoveredan atmospherearound a so - called super - Earth the discovery of just any new planets around other stars might not rate much attention , considering the thousands already hump . Indeed 72 system had previously been name with four or more planet .
However , we have very fiddling experience of such tight cluster of planets , peculiarly ones that swan from 1.98 to 2.22 times the size of Earth , rather than being accelerator giants . Moreover , EE-1 has a mass just 10 per centum less than that of the Sun , rather than being a red dwarf , so the discovery could avail us read the formation of our own .
To minimize the risk of error , Zooinverse has data from each wiz sort out by multiple volunteer before alerting professional stargazer . Zooinverse is seeking to contact those favorable enough to have been part of this process , so they can be list as authors on a scientific paper announce the discovery . While some have yet to be reach out , Darwin grease monkey Andrew Grey is beguiled to have been among those affect . " The first Nox I jumped on I think it was about until 12:30 . I catalogue 1,000 on the first night , ” GreytoldStargazing Live .
Simone Duca ’s full gif of EE-1 and its four known satellite .
