Below is a link to an announcement of the latest extrasolar planet discovered by the research team that I'm a part of. We recently found a fifth planet orbiting the nearby, Sun-like star 55 Cancri (can-cree). This is the first star other than the Sun known to harbor 5 planets, and the architecture of the planetary system is remarkably similar to the Solar System, with a large outer planet and four smaller planets closer to the star.
The new planet is 45 times the mass of Earth (about 3 times the mass of Neptune or half of a Saturn) and resides in an Earth-like orbit with a period of about a year.
Click on the link below and watch the streaming video interview of Geoff Marcy from the News Hour with Jim Lehrer.
Science!
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