May 30, 2003 - A team of Astronomers have weighed a group of planets orbiting a pulsar by precisely measuring their orbits. So far, two of the system's three planets have been weighed, and they're 4.3 and 3.0 times the mass of the Earth. What's unusual is that the spacing between the planets almost exactly match the spacing of Mercury, Venus and Earth - making this bizarre system the most similar to our own solar system so far discovered. The pulsar, 1257+12, was discovered 13 years ago using the Arecibo radio telescope. |