Can you tell me where to find more information about the new planets that were discovered outside our solar system?

There are many new places on the web were you can get the latest on extrasolar planets. You might try Jean Schneider's Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia for starters.

If you want to get information on what these planets actually look like, that's a bit more difficult because the details are so sketchy and speculative. In general, a Jupiter-sized plant ought to look much like the gas giants in our solar system, but when you put them very close to their star...inside the orbit of Mercury typically...then you are in a whole other realm of physics. There will be powerful convective motions in the atmosphere, and at temperatures above 1000 degrees, probably all of the beautiful colors we see in our own giant oplanets will be gone. Organic molecules give Jupiter its lovely colors, but these molecules will probably be absent. It may well be that these massive planets are as featureless as Venus.


Copyright 1997 Dr. Sten Odenwald
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