[TML] Bigass Planet X

[Timothy Little]

On Fri, Nov 16, 2007 at 02:34:06PM -0500, Garry Ward wrote:
> I think most of the worlds outside of the solar system that have
> been found are all several times larger than earth if not at least
> the size of jupiter or saturn.

Yes, practically all of the planets with known masses are heavier than
Saturn, and about half heavier than Jupiter.  However, this a just a
small sample out of all detected planets.  Almost all of these transit
(partially eclipse) the star, which also makes it easier to detect
smaller ones.

Of the (more numerous) detected planets that do not eclipse the star,
usually all we can say of the mass is that it must be greater than
some lower bound.  Most of these must be heavier than Jupiter, but we
do not know by how much.  Some of them may even be dim dwarf stars.


- Tim