2008-11-14, 08:47 PM
Lylac Wrote:Because the people who are studying these systems are professionals that have gone through years of schooling and work with precise instruments to detect planetary motion and dips in star brightness. Things published in academic articles are peer-reviewed by other researchers and professors at other universities to see if they can duplicate the results.
True, but look at Pluto. For 75 years, scientists all over the world were convinced, wihtout a shadow of a doubt, that Pluto was a planet. Then as science became more advanced, they realised that there were other "Plutos" in orbit around our Sun, and decided that it was no longer qualified to be called a planet. (dwarf planet/giant asteroid lol?)
While yes, this is an amazing discovery, once they do more research into it they could find out that these other planets are not what they expected.
Quote:"You see an object next to a star and you might think it's a planet," commented Mark McCaughrean, an astrophysicist at the University of Exeter, UK.
"But you have to watch it for several years and make sure that it moves around the star and with the star as it moves across the sky. Though I've been very sceptical in the past, these ones all seem pretty real to me," he told BBC News
These are a lot further away than Pluto is, so personally I wiould be inclined tot ake all of this with a pinch of salt :X It said that some of them are not very dense in mass, so they could just be giant dust balls XD
It is pretty amazing though... The fact we are starting to see things even further away is an accomplishment in itself.