Snapshot
February 02, 2011
Planet-palooza
An artist's rendering of Kepler-11, a star about 2,000 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Cygnus, reveals a record six planets orbiting close to their parent star. A second graphic of our own inner-most planets gives a sense of the crowded little solar system that is Kepler-11. Here's a larger version. The information, released today, is part of a wider release of findings from the space-based Kepler observatory, and involves hundreds of new extrasolar planets. The Kepler-11 system is now the most compact system known. Read more about it here.
Image: NASA/Tim Pyle
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