got geoint?

We admit that much of our coverage is about looking at our great planet from space. Well today we are going to turn the tides and look in the other direction – from Earth out into space. After six years of intensive observations, astronomers have identified a distant solar system with at least five Neptune-class worlds orbiting within 130 million miles or so of the parent star–closer than Mars is to the sun. According to CNET, two other planets are believed to be present, including one just 1.4 times as massive as Earth. So what does this mean? This planet would be the smallest yet discovered, additional proof that Earth-size planets are falling within the reach of current Earth-based instruments.

Christophe Lovis of the University of Geneva, lead author of a paper reporting the discovery, told CNET: “We have probably found the system with the most planets known today, coming close to the solar system. This means that we are now able to detect very complex systems of low-mass planets, which will help us a lot [in] understanding their diversity. This a step towards answering long-standing questions, such as, how common are habitable planets in the universe?”

So perhaps this could be a step towards answering that age-old question…are we the only ones in the universe? If you watch UFO Hunters on the History Channel, clearly you would know the answer to that question.

Tags: GEOINT 2010, geospatial intelligence, got geoint?, Neptune-Class Planets, New Solar System, Planets, Space