From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Thu Jun 13 2002 - 21:59:53 MDT
Hot dog!
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/13jun_newplanets.htm?list679700
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The star, 55 Cancri in the constellation Cancer, was already known to have
one planet, announced by Butler and Marcy in 1996. That planet is a gas
giant slightly smaller than the mass of Jupiter. It whips around the star
in 14.6 days at a distance of only 0.1 AU. (AU means "astronomical unit."
It's the distance between Earth and the Sun -- approximately 93-million
miles. So, the first planet found in the 55 Cancri system is only one-tenth
as far from its star as Earth is from the Sun.)
The newfound planet, announced today, orbits 55 Cancri at 5.5 AU,
comparable to Jupiter's distance from our Sun of 5.2 AU. Its slightly
elongated orbit takes it around the star in about 13 years, comparable to
Jupiter's orbital period of 11.86 years. It is 3.5 to 5 times the mass of
Jupiter.
The star 55 Cancri is 41 light years from Earth and is about 5-billion
years old -- about the same age as our own Sun. [etc]
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There's your comet mopper-upper. But maybe the close-in Jovian did awful
things to the habitable zone proto-worlds before they could congeal?
Damien Broderick
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