Another Big Planet Found Orbiting Star

Scientists reported the discovery of another giant, Jupiter-like planet orbiting a sun-like star, this one located in the constellation Northern Crown. If the evidence holds up, it will bring to nine the total number of worlds reliably considered to have been detected around sun-like stars beyond our sun. The “new” planet appears to be orbiting Rho Coronae Borealis, a star located about 50 light-years from Earth that helps form the “crown” of the constellation. The star is visible to the naked eye in the Northern Hemisphere from February through September. “This discovery helps show that giant planets like Jupiter may be reasonably common around ordinary stars,” said Robert Noyes of the Smithsonian Institution’s Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass., one of three institutions involved in the work. “It’s exciting to think that there may be many smaller planets much more like the Earth in orbit around these stars, as in our own solar system.” Since new astronomical techniques led to a burst of planet discovery beginning in late 1995, such planets have been found at widely ranging distances from their parent stars, from very close in to very far out.