European Satellite Could Discover Thousands of Planets

Princeton University and Lund University researchers project that the recently launched European satellite Gaia could discover tens of thousands of planets during its five-year mission.

In this image, the colored portions indicate the number of observations Gaia would make of a particular part of the sky during its mission; the scale at the bottom indicates the number of observations from zero (purple) to 200 (red). The total number of observations of any part of the sky ranges from about 60 at low ecliptic latitudes to about 80 at high ecliptic latitudes, with a maximum of about 150-200 at intermediate latitudes. From these many different observations of each star, the highly accurate Gaia measurements will reveal the tiny star motion, or "wobble," that results from any orbiting planet. (Image by Lennart Lindegren, Lund University)

A recently launched European satellite could reveal tens of thousands of new planets within the next few years, and provide scientists with a far better understanding of the number, variety and distribution of planets in our galaxy, according to research published today.