PLANETS like our own could be common, say astronomers in the US and
Canada.
No one has spotted Earth-like planets outside the Solar System. However, the
researchers have found a surprisingly large amount of the rocky material such
planets would be made of around stars like our Sun. “We think this is a very
exciting discovery,” says team member Brian Chaboyer of Dartmouth College in New
Hampshire.
The usual techniques for tracking down “extrasolar” planets rely on detecting
tiny changes in a star’s motion caused by the gravitational tug of an orbiting
planet. However, since stars are big and difficult…
