I’m always amazed when our scientists discover extra-solar planets, such as the one announced yesterday. Just a few years ago these kinds of discoveries were unheard of. I’m fascinated at how science can pick out these tiny specks orbiting stars that are light-years away.
On a related note, I’ve been unable to find a website listing of all discovered planets. NASA doesn’t seem to have a page, and the various universities and researchers tend to put out press releases with their announcements but don’t seem to collect them anywhere.
Anyone have a good resource showing all the known planets?
Update: Thanks to Wikipedia, I found exactly what I’m looking for: NASA’s PlanetQuest! PlanetQuest even has a widget for your desktop showing the latest planet count. Cool!
We’re up to 292 exoplanets now, for those of you keeping score.
Back in Feb, Geekdad reported that a girl in Montana won a competition to come up with a new mnemonic for the planets (now that My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas is so last year) to account for all *11* planets. 8 ‘normal’ and 3 ‘dwarf’ (or as my kids call ’em – the dorf-planets).
“My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants.”
Indeed.
http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2008/02/montana-girl-wi.html
I was trying to figure out what planet the “Carpet” stood for. Thanks to Wikipedia, I now know about Ceres, the dorf-planet.
I guess I’m not so up on my astronomy as I thought!