July 9, 2002
(PLANETQUEST) -- The search for new worlds reached a milestone this week when the total number of planets around stars outside our solar system topped 100. The new discoveries include one of the lowest minimum mass extrasolar planets ever detected.
The 101st planet, a companion to star HD 76700, is 0.69 the mass of Saturn and has a circular orbit that lasts just under four days. This planet, along with the giant planet HD 2039 b, were discovered through a radial velocity survey by an international team using the Anglo-Australian Telescope.
Both new planets are gas giants and are unlikely to support life as we know it.
The discoveries come on the heels of the announcement in June of 15 new planets, including a solar system that resembles our own -- a Jupiter-like planet orbiting a Sun-like star at nearly the same distance as the Jovian system orbits our Sun.
The catalog of new planets is likely to grow quickly as more than a dozen science teams worldwide continue to search for evidence of extrasolar planets by observing their effects on their host stars.
Future JPL missions such as the the Keck Interferometer, the Space Interferometry Mission and Terrestrial Planet Finder are expected to study some of the new planetary systems in detail and provide some of the first direct images of them.
