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Article: Planet of a Similar Sun; Astronomers Confirm First Discovery Of Mass Orbiting in System Like Ours
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- October 19, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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For the first time, astronomers have confirmed the discovery of a
planet circling a star similar to the sun.
The star, 51 Pegasus, is just 40 light-years distant and visible
to the naked eye in the Northern Hemisphere. The long-awaited
discovery of a planet in a system apparently similar to the solar
system has made the fifth-magnitude star the focus of intense
excitement among astronomers around the world as word spread this
week that the findings had been verified independently.
The detection of a planet with at least half the mass of Jupiter
(or about 160 times the mass of Earth) was first reported Oct. 6, at
a meeting in Florence by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of the Geneva ...