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Old 16-June-2008, 09:40 AM
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Five super-Earths around three stars, courtesy of HARPS:
  • HD 40307 (K dwarf) has a system of three super-Earths. HD 40307 b has a mass of mere 4.2 Earths so it is the smallest planet found by the radial velocity method so far.
  • HD 181433 (K giant) has a closely-orbiting super-Earth and a much more distant gas giant.
  • HD 47186 (late G dwarf) has a somewhat similar system.
Since the super-Earths orbit close to their stars (in the case of HD 40307 the orbital period of the outermost planet is 20.45 days!), and the stars are not red dwarfs they are by far too hot to be habitable.

According to the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia, the total number of planet candidates is now 303.
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