<p>Will it be called planet Princeton?</p>
<p>(excerpt)
"Astronomers from Princeton and other institutions have discovered the smallest planet found outside of our solar system using a technique that researchers believe will uncover others that potentially harbor life.</p>
<p>The rocky, icy planet is about five-and-a-half times the mass of Earth and is located more than 20,000 light years away in the constellation Sagittarius, close to the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The discovery, detailed in the Jan. 26 issue of Nature, was made by a collaboration of astronomers worldwide, including the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) group co-founded by Princeton's Bohdan Paczynski."</p>
<p><a href="http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S13/82/11A86/index.xml?section=topstories%5B/url%5D">http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S13/82/11A86/index.xml?section=topstories</a></p>
<p>hasnt there been a bunch of news like this? i mean arent there a ton of new "planets" out there, but there is contreversy over what can be called a planet. yeah, neil degrasse tyson found one a couple years back (like 5 i think now) there was a time article about this a while back too. oh well, its still cool i guess...</p>
<p>not to take away anything from princeton, but he was hardly involved. here's the paper in nature, and there are more than 50 authors, one of which is from princeton. The real authorship belongs, accordingly, to the senior authors who were from France and Notre Dame. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v439/n7075/abs/nature04441.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v439/n7075/abs/nature04441.html</a></p>
<p>This could shed some light (no pun intended) on the matter. Yesterday, in an article entitled, "Paczynski wins astronomical society's highest honor", it was stated:</p>
<p>"Princeton astrophysicist Bohdan Paczynski has been awarded the American Astronomical Society's highest honor, the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship, in recognition of "a lifetime of eminence in astronomical research."</p>
<p>With regard to planet discovery, the article stated:</p>
<p>"Paczynski, the Lyman Spitzer Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics, pioneered a technique known as gravitational microlensing, which recently enabled researchers to discover the smallest planet found outside of our solar system." </p>
<p>In addition to his cofounding the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE), I do not think we can call his contribution to the planet's discovery anything but large.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S13/82/13K64/index.xml?section=people%5B/url%5D">http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S13/82/13K64/index.xml?section=people</a></p>