[Utah-astronomy] Earth-Mass Planet Found in Nearest Star System

Planet Found in Nearest Star System to Earth ESO’s HARPS instrument finds Earth-mass exoplanet orbiting Alpha Centauri B European astronomers have discovered a planet with about the mass of the Earth orbiting a star in the Alpha Centauri system — the nearest to Earth. It is also the lightest exoplanet ever discovered around a star like the Sun. The planet was detected using the HARPS instrument on the 3.6-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. The results will appear online in the journal Nature on 17 October 2012. The release, images and videos are available on: http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1241/ patrick