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The Planet
Hunters citizen science program has
announced success again in finding planets
around other stars: A
Newly Confirmed Planet and 42 Additional
Planet Candidates.
They announced the discovery and confirmation
of a second confirmed planet : PH2 b-a Jupiter-size
planet in the habitable zone of a star like
the Sun. A paper describing the discovery
was submitted to the Astrophysical Journal
and is available to the public at arxiv.org.
Though the planet is in the habitable zone
(i.e. where liquid water could be stable),
it is a gas giant liike Jupiter. So "there
is no solid surface or liquid environment
for life to thrive". Perhaps there
are Moons, though...
In addition, they announced "the discoveries
of 31 long-period planet candidates with
periods more than 100 days, including 15
candidates located in the habitable zones
of their host stars. The candidate list
is a joint effort between the volunteer
Planet Hunters, and the science team."
"Several dedicated Planet Hunters
collected information on candidates and
carried out light curve modeling and initial
vetting for false positives. The science
team then decided the priority of each target
on the candidate list and conducted follow-up
observations."
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