@Home AP - Evidence of New Solar System Found
      Evidence of New Solar System Found
      Thursday, 15 April 1999
      S A N  F R A N C I S C O  (AP)
      FOR THE first time, there is clear evidence that a solar system other than 
      our own exists, researchers said Thursday. 
      Three huge planets are spinning around the star Upsilon Andromedae 44 
      light years from Earth in our Milky Way galaxy, San Francisco State 
      University researchers said at a news conference. 
      Their presence indicates that many of the Milky Way's 200 billion stars 
      are likely to have planetary systems. 
      "It implies that planets can form more easily than we ever imagined, and 
      that our Milky Way is teeming with planetary systems," said Debra Fischer, 
      one of the researchers. 
      The researchers began their search for planets 12 years ago. They and 
      their colleagues are responsible for finding 14 of the 20 planets known to 
      exist outside the Earth's solar system. 
      However, those planets were single bodies surrounding a star. This is the 
      first time multiple planets around a star have been found. 
      The innermost of the three planets, spotted in 1996, has at least 75 
      percent of the mass of Jupiter and is very close to its sun, orbiting once 
      every 4.6 days. Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system, 318 
      times the size of Earth. 
      The middle planet is twice Jupiter's mass and orbits the star every 242 
      days from a location about as far as Venus from the sun. The outer planet 
      has the mass of four Jupiters and orbits its star every 3 1/2 to 4 years. 
      It is more than twice as far from its star as Earth is from the sun. 
      Earthlike planets are unlikely to be found in such systems, the scientists 
      said, because the forces generated by huge Jupiterlike planets moving in 
      elliptical rather than circular orbits would kick smaller planets out into 
      oblivion. 
      "Now we have a multiple system, maybe a Rosetta stone to help us 
      understand a lot of these weird planets we're finding," said R. Paul 
      Butler by telephone from the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Epping, 
      Australia. 
      The Rosetta stone is an ancient inscription in three languages that 
      allowed scientists to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics. 
      Upsilon Andromedae is easily visible with the naked eye, although it is 
      currently behind the sun and will not be seen until June. 
      The planets were discovered using a method that measures their 
      gravitational pull on their star, not by direct observation. Planets' 
      gravity tugs on their stars, causing them to wobble slightly. By examining 
      the star's ultraviolet light transmissions, astronomers can calculate 
      back-and-forth shifts in the ultraviolet wavelengths. A larger wobble 
      indicates the orbiting planet is large. 
      "I am mystified at how such a system of Jupiterlike planets might have 
      been created," said Geoffrey Marcy, professor of physics and astronomy at 
      San Francisco State. 
      "This will shake up the theory of planet formation." 
      Alex Wolszczan, an astronomy professor at Penn State University, called 
      the discovery an important step toward understanding the cosmos. 
      "It has been anticipated and awaited by the scientific community. It's 
      nice to see it's finally happened," he said. "What I get right away from 
      this particular discovery is that it emphasizes even more how different 
      those systems are from our own."