Worlds Like Home

Astronomers have been telling us for several years that they would one day find a planet out there that resembled, in terms of size and distance from its star, a planet in our own solar system. In 2002, they found two of them.

Artist's impression of an otherworld, with moon.
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A team from the United States announced the first "other Jupiter" in June, and a week later a Swiss team told of an almost identical finding around a different star. We may never see these worlds, or at least it will be a very long time before technology allows us to, but together, scientists and artists are able to imagine what they look like.

An interesting result of these discoveries: Scientists find themselves with no official way to keep up with the 100 or so planets now thought to exist around other stars. And the list is growing.

Next Page: Birth of Saturn