Using a modest-sized ground-based telescope, astronomers have spotted a planet twice the size of Earth passing in front of its host star.
Researchers typically study planets outside the Solar System using space telescopes or much larger telescopes on Earth, but studies with space telescopes are expensive and access to large facilities on the ground is limited. A team led by Ernst de Mooij, now at Queen's University Belfast, UK, used a smaller telescope in La Palma, Spain, to investigate the Sun-like star 55 Cancri. The scientists' size measurements of one of the star's known planets were similar to those obtained using orbiting telescopes.
Such ground-based studies can complement those using space telescopes, the authors say.
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Exoplanet seen from Earth. Nature 516, 291 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/516291e
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/516291e
