14 DAY TRIAL // Planets found outside the solar system barely count as news these days. That's both wonderful and troubling. To get some attention, new discoveries have to stand out. A few planets spotted by the new defunct Kepler Space Telescope and part of a new survey certainly manage to do that.
In a new study by Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism scientists focused on planet candidates that have extremely short orbits.
Some planets found by Kepler are know to complete a full orbit around their stars in days or even hours. The new survey found six planets or candidates that complete an orbit in less than 12 hours.
The hope is that, even if they are very small, these planets may be observable through Earth telescopes, because they stick so close to their stars' surface. Some of the candidates have orbital periods as short as four hours, indicating that they are almost skimming the surface of their star.