More than one blue planet?
The first planet orbiting a star outside the Solar System was observed in 1995. Since then, over two hundred such extra-solar planets have been discovered, all Jupiter-like giants, rich in gas.
The Corot space telescope was launched in 2006, to study variations in the light output of stars. A few months later, while observing anomalies in the emission of light from a star outside the Solar System, Corot detected an orbiting planet, smaller and denser than any previously discovered.
Such high-precision data implies that Corot will be able to discover new rocky planets, similar in size to Earth and provide data on their chemical composition. Maybe we will find a sister-planet to our own Earth?
For more information on this Hubble image, please click on the following link: Artist’s view of an exoplanet.