Tiny “David” telescope finds “Goliath” planet

A newfound planet detected by a small, 4-inch-diameter telescope demonstrates that we are at the cusp of a new age of planet discovery. Soon, new worlds may be located at an accelerating pace, bringing the detection of the first Earth-sized world one step closer. “This discovery demonstrates that even humble telescopes can make huge contributions to planet searches,” says Guillermo Torres of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), a co-author on the study. This is the very first extrasolar planet discovery made by a dedicated survey of many thousands of relatively bright stars in large regions of the sky. It was made using the Trans-Atlantic Exoplanet Survey (TrES), a network of small, relatively inexpensive telescopes designed to look specifically for planets orbiting bright stars.