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On Fri, 25 Sep 1998, Stephanie wrote:
> I read a blurb in the 1995 year-end edition of People magazine about a =
> man who discovered a new planet within our solar system. I kept the =
> blurb for a couple of years, but it's misplaced now. I can't remember =
> the man's name, and I haven't found any information about this planet. =
> Can you help me?
>
> Stephanie
Dear Stephanie,
No new planets have been discovered in our own solar system since February
18, 1930, when Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto. Tombaugh passed away in
1997. Recently, several asteroid/comet-like objects have been found in the
Kuiper Belt, a region outside the orbit of Neptune where mnay comets are
thought to come from. I do not recall who discovered the first of these
objects, but they were found in 1992/93. Finally, planets outside our
solar system were first found and announced in 1994/95 by Alex Wolszczan,
an astronomer at Penn State University (and my former academic advisor).
His discovery of planets around a dead star received a fair amount of
attention until the first planets around a sun-like star were discovered
by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of Geneva Observatory in Switzerland in
October 1995.
For more information on planets outside our solar system around "normal
stars, check out the web page of the world's leading planet hunters, Geoff
Marcy and Paul Butler, at:
http://cannon.sfsu.edu/~gmarcy/planetsearch/planetsearch.html
For more information on our own solar system, take a look at:
http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/billa/tnp/
I hope this helps, and at least one of these names sounds familiar!
Sincerely,
Kurtis Williams
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