First Four Exoplanets of 2012 Discovered 36
astroengine writes "Only four days into the New Year and the first four exoplanets of 2012 have been spotted orbiting four distant stars. All four alien worlds are known as 'hot Jupiters' — large gas giant planets orbiting very close to their stars. Their orbits are aligned just right with the Earth so that when they pass in front of their parent stars, they slightly dim the starlight from view. The discovery was made by the The Hungarian-made Automated Telescope Network (HATNet) Project (maintained by Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) consisting of six small (11cm diameter), wide-field automated telescopes based at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory (FLWO), Cambridge, Mass. and The Submillimeter Array atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii."
I believe alien life exists in the universe (Score:4, Insightful)
The Drake Equation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation [wikipedia.org] way back when made me accept that the probability of life elsewhere in the universe was high. These exo-planet discoveries are not all that surprising to me. Furthermore the existence of these planets is inferred. It's not like the HST captured some cool pictures of them. In fact, it's unlikely anyone in the near future (for whatever defn of "near future" you care to use) will ever see these planets with their own 2 eyes, or travel to any of them.
In short, they're boring.