A NEW planet has been spotted around a nearby star. A common enough headline, but this planet is different from the hundred or so already discovered. Just a tenth the size of Jupiter, and as far away from its star as Pluto is from the Sun, it is undetectable using conventional methods. Instead, it made itself felt by disturbing the dust disc around its star. The technique will let astronomers look for planets that are smaller and more distant from their stars than ever before.
Virtually all of the planets found orbiting other stars were discovered by watching for the…
