Terrestrial Planet Formation in Binary Star Systems

The list of confirmed extrasolar planets keeps growing, and has now passed two hundred members — almost all of which are gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn. But the hunt is on for Earth-like worlds! With the successful launch of France's CoRoT satellite (December 27, 2006) and the promise of NASA's Kepler mission (due to be launched October 2008), the next five years should see the detection of numerous terrestrial planets around distant stars. But which stars should these telescopes be pointed at? Recent research has shown that these planets are probably quite common, and can even form in binary star systems.

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<p><a href="http://www.physorg.com/news89031463.html">Terrestrial Planet Formation in Binary Star Systems</a></p> <p>The list of confirmed extrasolar planets keeps growing, and has now passed two hundred members — almost all of which are gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn. But the hunt is on for Earth-like worlds! With the successful launch of France's CoRoT satellite (December 27, 2006) and the promise of NASA's Kepler mission (due to be launched October 2008), the next five years should see the detection of numerous <i>terrestrial</i> planets around distant stars. But which stars should these telescopes be pointed at? Recent research has shown that these planets are probably quite common, and can even form in binary star systems.</p>