Video News Release 27: Lightest Exoplanet Found (eso0915b)

Well-known exoplanet researcher Michel Mayor today announced the discovery of the lightest exoplanet found so far. The planet, “e”, in the famous system Gliese 581, is only about twice the mass of our Earth. The team also refined the orbit of the planet Gliese 581 d, first discovered in 2007, placing it well within the habitable zone, where liquid water oceans could exist. These amazing discoveries are the outcome of more than four years of observations using the most successful low-mass-exoplanet hunter in the world, the HARPS spectrograph attached to the 3.6-metre ESO telescope at La Silla, Chile.

This Video News Release is targeted especially at broadcasters for further editing. In order to keep the audio tracks editable, different sound information has been recorded on two separate tracks at optimal volumes as is common standard in professional post production. This video is not meant for on screen viewing — on ESOcasts are better suited for that.