Skip to main content

The Discovery of the Century

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
  • 1908 Accesses

Part of the book series: Springer Praxis Books ((POPULAR))

Abstract

On the fifth of October, 1995, astronomers Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland made an announcement that shocked the world-wide astronomy community: “The presence of a Jupiter-mass companion to the star 51 Pegasi is inferred from observations of periodic variations in the star's radial velocity.”

We do not live in a special place in the universe.

The Cosmological Principle

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   34.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   44.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Mayor, M., & Queloz, D. (1995). A Jupiter-Mass companion to a solar-type star. Nature, 378, 355.

  2. 2.

    Marcy, G., & Butler, P. (1995). The planet around 51 Pegasi. Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 27, 1379.

  3. 3.

    Marcy, G., & Butler, P. (1996). A planetary companion to 70 Virginis. Astrophysical Journal, 464, L147.

  4. 4.

    Marcy, G., & Butler, P. (1996). A planet orbiting 47 Ursae Majoris. Astrophysical Journal, 464, L153.

  5. 5.

    Cochran, W., Hatzes, A., Butler, P., & Marcy, G. (1996). Detection of a planetary companion to 16 Cygni B. DPS, 28, 12.04.

  6. 6.

    Butler, P., et al. (1997). Three new “51 Pegasi-type” planets. Astrophysical Journal, 474, L115.

  7. 7.

    Noyes, R., et al. R. A planet orbiting the star rho Coronae Borealis. Astrophysical Journal, 487, L195.

  8. 8.

    Butler, P., et al. (1999). Evidence for multiple companions to υ Andromedae. Astrophysical Journal, 526, 916.

  9. 9.

    exoplanets: The chronology of the discoveries. Retrieved from http://obswww.unige.ch/~naef/RECAN/announcement.html#1995

  10. 10.

    McKay, D. S., et al. (1996). Search for past life on Mars: Possible relic biogenic activity in Martian meteorite ALH84001. Science, 273, 924.

  11. 11.

    Glavin, D. P., et al. (2010). Extraterrestrial amino acids in the Almahata Sitta meteorite. Meteoritics & Space Science, 45, 1695.

  12. 12.

    Goldsmith, D., & Owen, T. (1993). The search for life in the Universe (2nd ed., p. 271). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing.

  13. 13.

    Stoks, P. G., & Schwartz, A. W. (1979). “Uracil in carbonaceous meteorites,” Nature, 282, 709.

  14. 14.

    Lawless, J. G., et al. (1971). Amino acids indigenous to the Murray Meteorite. Science, 173, 626.

  15. 15.

    Cooper, G., et al. (2001). Carbonaceous meteorites as a source of sugar-related organic compounds for the early Earth. Nature, 414, 879.

  16. 16.

    Krasnopolsky, V., et al. (2004). Detection of methane in the Martian atmosphere: Evidence for life? Icarus, 172, 537; Formisano, V., et al. (2004). Detection of methane in the atmosphere of Mars. Science, 306, 1758; Mumma, M. J., et al. (2004). Detection and mapping of methane and water on Mars. BAAS, 36, 1127.

  17. 17.

    Encrenaz, T. (2008). Search for methane on Mars: Observations, interpretation and future work. Advances in Space Research, 42, 1.

  18. 18.

    Webster, C. R., et al. (2013). Low upper limit to methane abundance on Mars. Science, 342, 355.

  19. 19.

    Chang, K. (2013, September 19). Life on Mars? Well, maybe not. The New York Times.

  20. 20.

    Boyle, A. (2013, July 7). Antarctica’s hidden Lake Vostok found to teem with life. NBC News Report. Retrieved from http://www.nbcnews.com/science/antarcticas-hidden-lake-vostok-found-teem-life-6C10561955; Shtarkman, Y. M., et al. (2013, July 3). Subglacial Lake Vostok (Antarctica) accretion ice contains a diverse set of sequences from aquatic, marine and sediment-inhabiting bacteria and eukarya. PLoS One.

  21. 21.

    Doyle, L. R. (2011). Kepler-16: A transiting circumbinary planet. Science, 333, 1602.

  22. 22.

    von Braun, K., et al. (2011). 55 Cancri: Stellar astrophysical parameters, a planet in the habitable zone, and implications for the radius of a transiting super-Earth. Astrophysical Journal, 740, 49.

  23. 23.

    Woolf, N., et al. (2001). The spectrum of earthshine: A pale blue dot observed from the ground. BAAS, 33, 1305.

  24. 24.

    Desert, J.-M., et al. (2011). Observational evidence for a metal-rich atmosphere on the super-Earth GJ1214b. Astrophysical Journal, 731, L40.

  25. 25.

    Evans, T. M., et al. (2013). The deep blue color of HD 189733b: Albedo measurements with Hubble space telescope/space telescope imaging spectrograph at visible wavelengths. Astrophysical Journal, 772, L16.

  26. 26.

    Kuzuhara, M., et al. (2013). Direct imaging of a cold Jovian exoplanet in orbit around the Sun-like star GJ 504. Astrophysical Journal, 774, 11; NASA News Release. Astronomers image lowest-mass expolanet around a Sun-like star (5 Aug 2013).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Weintraub, D.A. (2014). The Discovery of the Century. In: Religions and Extraterrestrial Life. Springer Praxis Books(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05056-0_3

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics