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Description:
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After decades of high-tech searches, astronomers are just now beginning to reap the rewards of their hunt for "distant wanderers" -planets in orbit around stars outside our own solar system. Armed with new tools and techniques, these star-gazing scientists have made enormous strides in planet-searching in the last few years, and the results of their efforts are nothing short of spectacular.
In a refreshing and accessible narrative, veteran science journalist Bruce Dorminey explains what's already been found and what's likely to be found as astronomers gaze ever further and more keenly into space. The early returns, he reports, are amazing: planets come in all shapes and sizes. They are searingly hot and abysmally cold. Some have nearly circular stable orbits, others follow widly elliptical paths. And some are so strange that they challenge the very definition of the world "planet", or seem to reverse our long-held notions of the roles of planet and star.
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