Transiting Exoplanet

A team of European researchers has recently discovered a new planet orbitug another star by noting the planet's transit across the disk of its sun. The exoplanet is another "hot Jupiter," orbiting its star in 9.2 days, which happens to equal the rotation rate of the star about its axis-- its "day." The star is slightly larger than our Sun.

Observing transits to detect planets around other stars would seem to be a technique of limited value since it depends upon the planet's orbit being well enough aligned with Earth that our instruments can note the transit. Such alignment is a random occurrence, unless we postulate some deep connection between the Sun and the star in question, which nobody is doing. Still, several exoplanets have been discovered using the technique.