Latest news from the 2014 Geneva Motor Show  Kepler spacecraft
discovers tiniest solar system yet found   January 22, 2012
Artist's rendering of KOI-961 (Image: NASA)  Artist's rendering
of KOI-961 (Image: NASA)  Image Gallery (6 images)  Astronomers
using data from NASA's Kepler mission have discovered a tiny
solar system consisting of a single red dwarf star, known as
KOI-961 and three planets which are 0.78, 0.73 and 0.57 times
the radius of Earth.   Comparison of KOI-961 and its planets to
Jupiter and its moons (Image: NASA)  To find the size of the
planets, data on a well-studied twin star to KOI-961 (known as
Barnard's Star) was used. Once they were able to estimate the
size of KOI-961 - or Kepler Object of Interest 961 - astronomers
were able to determine how big the planets must be to have
caused the observed dips in starlight. In addition to the Kepler
observations and ground-based telescope measurements, the team
used modeling techniques to confirm the discoveries.  The
smallest of the three planet