Astronomers find planets around far-off stars

April 22, 1996
Web posted at: 11:20 p.m. EDT

BERKELEY, California (CNN) -- Paul Butler and Geoff Marcy have opened the door to what may be a revolution in the stargazing business. They have developed a way to detect planets orbiting distant stars -- as far away as 40 or 50 light years.

The two scientists' technique has turned up five planets outside earth's solar system -- and that is five more than were known six months ago.

"We're almost doing a planet a month right now," says Butler.

Butler and Marcy don't actually see the planets. Instead the infer their existence by measuring their effects on distant suns. Particularly exciting to astronomers is the fact that two of the planets appear to be the right distance from their suns to have water on them.

And water means the possibility of life. "But to be honest," says Marcy, "none of our planets that we've discovered so far probably have pools or lakes or oceans on them."

Marcy and Butler's work is also aiding the work of another astronomer in his search for life in space.

"Well, it helps us figure out where to point our radio telescopes to look for .. radio signals," says Dan Werthimer, who heads the University of California-Berkeley's project to find life in space by listening to radio waves.

So far, Butler and Marcy have been able to detect only very large planets -- those about the size of Jupiter. They say that the only thing holding them back is technology, and as telescopes get better, they expect to see even smaller planets than they've seen so far.

Butler and Marcy's discoveries have already drawn worldwide attention. But their dream is to someday see these planets -- and not just measure their effects. Butler says that only space-based technology can make that possible.

That means technology even more sophisticated than the Hubble telescope.

Until that happens, the two scientists must settle for the drawings sent to them by school children who heard of their work. The drawings can perhaps aid the scientists' own imaginations about what those far-off worlds might look like.

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From Correspondent Craig Heaps

Related sites

• Searching for Extrasolar Planets
• Mark W. Maimone's New Planet Page

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