The gravity of Gl 436 b is given in the paper as 'log g= 5.0 dex';

what does that mean in Earth gravities again? (sorry, I have forgotten- must be getting old).

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Orion's Arm . The Starlark . Voices: Future Tense- Novella Contest Issue! . OA Flickr set

You have to be careful when talking about 'ice' because any substance which is fluid in normal experience can be called ice when it freezes; water, CO2, ammonia, even oxygen and nitrogen. (frozen nitrogen could be found on Triton, apparently). So 'water ice' is probably the most accurate description of the stuff under Gl 436b's hypothetical ocean.

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Orion's Arm . The Starlark . Voices: Future Tense- Novella Contest Issue! . OA Flickr set

Using an on-line calculator I find that the gravity is about 1.43 gees, by the way. Not that excessive...

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Orion's Arm . The Starlark . Voices: Future Tense- Novella Contest Issue! . OA Flickr set

McDonald Observatory news release: Astronomers Discover Multi-Planet System; May Alter Theories of Planet Formation

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Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
-- Richard Feynman

28 New Exoplanets and Four Multi-Planet Systems

So, the California/Carnegie Team hasn't been idle...

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Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
-- Richard Feynman

Some All of the planets were announced earlier...

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Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
-- Richard Feynman

Space.com: Oddball Planet Puzzles Astronomers

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Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
-- Richard Feynman

Lowell Observatory: Massive Transiting Planet with 31-hour Year Found Around Distant Star

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Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
-- Richard Feynman

Steinn Sigurdsson from the Dynamics of Cats blogs is attending on an extrasolar planet conference in Santorini, Greece and has some very interesting reports:

* First true Jupiter analog confirmed
* Strong evidence of planet around a white dwarf

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Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
-- Richard Feynman

One of the big XP questions is how common our freakish system layout is. If it turns out to be as common as one in three, then I'll have to eat serious crow.

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Wikipedia: A MMORPG for self-denialists.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

No doubt, others have already done this, but in case they haven't....

Another how many approach to XPs is the use of mathematical extrapolation of the discovery rate.

Assuming discovery technology only maintains the rate and does not accelerate it - the easy ones, afterall, are limited in supply - then the following XP number is what might be awaiting us...

I used 50 for 2007 as a guess based on 31 so far for the year. I don't have the months of discovery for comparison. Are more announcements made earlier than the year. If, however, the latter part of the year is about the same as the first half, then 62 should could be a better number. Using 62 for 2007, then we have...

Interesting, but I don't intend to suggest it is likely, or unlikely, just interesting.

[Edit: I quickly realized I had an error and this is the corrected extrapolation]

[Added: Shoot!, it is wrong, too. It is stricly linear! Dang. I used linear interpolation (all I found on Quatro Pro).

It is now based on the Growth function. Hopefully, this is more mature.

Source is: http://vo.obspm.fr/exoplanetes/encyclo/catalog-all.php ]

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

Ooo, now THAT is very interesting. Because as they say, if it really is a Jupiter analogue then it might have rocky planets closer in.

The difference between reason and dogma is the ability to eat crow.

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"Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph" -- Conan

Nice. No doubt, crow will be a common exoplanet life form.

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

I wonder what basis you use when extrapolating the numbers. The increase of discoveries reached 34 in 2002 (the maximum so far) and has leveled since. This year may prove to be the most successful so far, but the predicted flood of transiting planets is yet to come.

PS. Regarding the Jupiter analog, it is told that the Europeans have detected similar candidates that they're going to publish in the coming months.

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Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
-- Richard Feynman

Yes, this still holds true, apparently. The current count seems to be 31 so far for 2007. [The ref. link was added to the bottom of my post. Clicking on the "Discovery" year will sort by year for easy counting.]

I took the liberty of assuming about 50 for the total for 2007 (19 more for the second half). This, I hope, is too modest. The second table simply doubles the number for the second half.

Of course, the variables affecting the future count are many, but I assume they will be even more favorable than the simple geometric growth table. Your thread spurred my interest in trying something like this (for grins, mainly).

Care to insert an annual prognostication? If so, I will be happy reshuffle the cards and offer the extrapolation table.

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

No, I can't make even a remotely reasonable guess.

I don't remember the original numbers but by now there should be over a hundred SuperWASP planets. In reality, there are two of them and maybe a few dozen interesting but yet to be checked candidates.

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Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
-- Richard Feynman

Interesting times ahead:

That's not all:

Barnard's Star is "clean"