On October 6, 1995, Swiss astronomers Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz announced the first discovery of an exoplanet, orbiting 51 Pegasi. 51 Pegasi b, informally named Bellerophon, is the first discovered planetary-mass companion of its parent star. Observations of its properties, including the fact that it orbits very close to the star, suffers estimated temperatures around 1200°C, and has a minimum mass about half that of Jupiter, were not compatible with theories of planet formation and resulted in discussions of planetary migration, and a great validation of the principle that observation trumps theory, and when you only have theory, you might have nothin! youtube/watch?v=AP1THu5JPIc
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 01:07:16 +0000
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