Gliese 581 c is not the only planet discovered recently.

* XO-2b: is a fairly typical transiting planet discovered by the XO telescope. It orbits one of the components of a wide binary star.
* HAT-2-b orbits the star HD 147506. It is by far the most massive and eccentric transiting planet discovered so far.
* Corot-exo-1b is the first planet discovered by the COROT telescope. Even though it is more massive than Jupiter, it seems to be one the most inflated planet discovered so far (radius 1.5-1.8 times that of Jupiter).

There are also been many regular radial velocity planet discoveries recently. So far in 2007 there have been almost as many discoveries as in the last year together (24 vs. 27). During the recent years and against predictions the number of new planets have been fairly constant between 26 and 34. Apparently that is changing, especially as lower-mass planets are being found more and more...

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Two new yet-to-be announced transiting planets:
* TrES survey has found its third planet. TrES-3 is "a nearby, massive, transiting hot Jupiter in a 31-hour orbit". No further information available.
* XO-3b (not yet announced) resembles HAT-2-b in the sense it has an eccentric orbit (e ~ 0.2) and it is very massive (12 M_J, near the brown dwarf border). Since its host star is metal-poor, it is possible that it is actually a brown 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.
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* HD 17092 b, a massive planet around the giant star HD 17092.

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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

This is one of my favorite exoplanet sites
http://www.oklo.org/

Some other interesting ones that happened some time back

the Genesis planet - PSR B1620-26, it is thought to be almost 13 billion years old, discovery made thanks to Hubble

Keck Observatory has confirms the existence of Jupiter-sized planet, spotted by a network of astronomers using regular backyard telescopes, planet named TrES-1

2M1207b a direct image of an extra solar planet ?

A bit off-topic but Sporally has a vote going when Earth-II will be found
When will we find exoEarth

The nickname of PSR B1620-26c is Methuselah, not "Genesis".

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The torrent continues...

* Two Jovian planets around the ancient (10 Ga) star HD 155358. It is the most metal-deficient star (20% of Sun's metallicity) known to have planets.

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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.
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Nature news article about the flood of recent discoveries.

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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.
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That's weird... WASP-1, the parent star of the very large planet WASP-1b, appears to be very similar to HD 149026, whose super-hot planet is anomalously dense. Apparently HD 149026 b's properties cannot be explained simply by the star's excessive metallicity.

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Title: TrES-3: A Nearby, Massive, Transiting Hot Jupiter in a 31-Hour Orbit
Authors: Francis T. O'Donovan, David Charbonneau, Gáspár Á. Bakos, Georgi Mandushev, Edward W. Dunham, Timothy M. Brown, David W. Latham, Guillermo Torres, Alessandro Sozzetti, Géza Kovács, Mark E. Everett, Nairn Baliber, Márton G. Hidas, Gilbert A. Esquerdo, Markus Rabus, Hans J. Deeg, Juan A. Belmonte, Lynne A. Hillenbrand, Robert P. Stefanik.

We describe the discovery of a massive transiting hot Jupiter with a very short orbital period (1.30619 d), which we name TrES-3. From spectroscopy of the host star GSC 03089-00929, we measure T_eff = 5720 ± 150 K, logg=4.6 ± 0.3, and vsini < 2 km/s, and derive a stellar mass of 0.90 ± 0.15 M_sun. We estimate a planetary mass of 1.92 ± 0.23 M_Jup, based on the sinusoidal variation of our high-precision radial velocity measurements. This variation has a period and phase consistent with our transit photometry. Our spectra show no evidence of line bisector variations that would indicate a blended eclipsing binary star. From detailed modelling of our B and z photometry of the 2.5%-deep transits, we determine a stellar radius 0.802 ± 0.046 R_sun and a planetary radius 1.295 ± 0.081 R_Jup. TrES-3 has one of the shortest orbital periods of the known transiting exoplanets, facilitating studies of orbital decay and mass loss due to evaporation, and making it an excellent target for future studies of infrared emission and reflected starlight.

Read more (39kb, PDF)

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I just did an article on TrES-3. There are almost too many stories to keep up with now.

http://www.universetoday.com/2007/05...just-31-hours/

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It seems like most of the papers are strongly emphasizing each exoplanet's unique characteristics to try and stand out in the crowd. I guess this is a consequence of there being so many discoveries recently.

Hum,
that would imply that they were aware of the other stories that were perhaps going to be released...and if true - that would mean that they released them together on purpose.

Motive: to stress out Fraser et al

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I was talking with the researchers for TrES-3 and they said that there wasn't going to be a press release. So that confirms it. Extrasolar planets aren't important enough to warrant a press release any more.

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Detection of transits of the nearby hot Neptune GJ 436 b

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systemic blog:

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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.
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Actually not true... there are certainly no less extrasolar planet press releases than before, there's no point to make press releases of similar discoveries. We already know 20 transiting planets, so TrES-3 is no longer as big news. Another reason is that TrES-3 doesn't have the magic words "habitable" and "water". That doesn't mean it isn't important, of course.

It is incredible if they don't make a press release about Gliese 436 b... *wink*

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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.
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Hum,
interesting diagram in their paper.

(used under fair use policy)

Attached Images

Image4.gif (21.6 KB, 58 views)

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`Irony` actually does mean `metal like`...

Wow...

I agree with the blogger...Gl 436b is one of the biggest discoveries of the year; we've been looking for a Neptune-sized transiting planet for a long time. This could go a ways towards refining models of planetary size, density, and composition.

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Very interesting. I know humans love to look for patterns, even when none exist, but it seems to me that one could make a pretty nice curve connecting the points on that graph. I just don't know exactly what it would mean - maybe something about formation mechanisms?

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I don't see anything odd in the diagram unless you don't count the puffed-up Jupiters and the super-dense HD 149026 b, whose origins are not yet explained. The seemingly exponential curve hardly means anything.

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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.
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I'll do an article on Gl 436b.

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New Scientist Space: Strange alien world made of 'hot ice'

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Hum,
ie water

Images here of the L’Observatoire François-Xavier Bagnoud.

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`Irony` actually does mean `metal like`...

Hubble's astrometric measurements have shown that the massive planet HD 33636 b (minimum mass 9.3 M_Jup) is actually a low-mass star (142 ± 11 M_Jup).

Interestingly, Spitzer had detected a dust disk around HD 33636. There was a press release some time ago about the discovery that dust disks are common around binaries.

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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

Hot ice is H20, but not necessarily water, as I'm sure you know.
The water at the bottom of an ocean hundreds of kilometers deep would be compressed into one of the many ices in this diagram, some of which can exist at high temperatures (particularly Ice VII)
http://www.colorado.edu/physics/phys...ages/phase.gif

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Okay, there's GJ 436b covered
http://www.universetoday.com/2007/05...-superhot-ice/

Once again, no press release.

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Fraser Cain
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Universe Today - Free space news delivered by email every weekday.

Hum,
So no Kevin Costner...

But, I came across this a while ago, (i may have even posted a thread about it here ....)...

http://www.technologynewsdaily.com/node/4690

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`Irony` actually does mean `metal like`...

A non-technical Reuters article via CNN about GJ436b, the hot-solid-water-(but-not-cold)-ice planet.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/0...eut/index.html

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are you kidding ? water is water in every phase whatever our liquid water on earth or some hot ice on roasting mini uranus somewhere...it is still h2o so WATER....saying that h2o isnt water is like saying co2 is not carbon dioxide or 666 is no beast number

Well, it didn't take long: the first amateur observation of the transit of Gliese 436 b.

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