Stargazing viewer in planet coup (BBC) {tyro discovers planet}

[eppur_se_muova]

Last edited Thu Jan 19, 2012, 09:08 AM - Edit history (1)

By Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent, BBC News

The public push initiated on BBC Two's Stargazing Live series to find planets beyond our Solar System has had an immediate result.

A viewer who answered the call has helped spot a world that appears to be circling a star dubbed SPH10066540.

The planet is described as being similar in size to our Neptune and circles its parent every 90 days.

Chris Holmes from Peterborough found it by looking through time-lapsed images of stars on Planethunters.org.

The website hosts data gathered by Nasa's Kepler space telescope, and asks volunteers to sift the information for anything unusual that might have been missed in a computer search.
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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16612181

find your own damned planet: http://www.planethunters.org/





That was fast.

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. The programme gave joint credit to Lee Threapleton

http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/news/local/stargazing_peterborough_man_helps_finds_new_planet_1_3432521?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=feedburner&utm_campaign=Feed:%20peterboroughtoday-local-news%20%28Local%20news%20-%20PeterboroughToday.co.uk%29

And so they said the planet was 'Threapleton-Holmes B'. And you don't get a more British-sounding name than that!