THE first ever multiple planetary system composed only of Neptune-sized worlds has been spotted circling a star only 41 light years away, in the constellation Puppis. One of the planets is by far the smallest ever found in the “habitable zone” of a sun-like star, where liquid water could exist.
Astronomers have discovered more than 170 extrasolar planets so far. More than 40 are in systems containing two planets or more. But so far, all these multiple systems have been dominated by at least one Jupiter-mass giant.
Now Christophe Lovis from the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland and colleagues have found…
