Psych Central  Scientists announce smallest extra-solar planet
yet discovered   Find outer limits of the pulsar planetary
system  Penn State's Alex Wolszczan, the discoverer in 1992 of
the first planets ever found outside our solar system, now has
discovered with Caltech's Maciej Konacki the smallest planet yet
detected, in that same far-away planetary system. Immersed in an
extended cloud of ionized gas, the new planet orbits a rapidly
spinning neutron star called a pulsar. The discovery, to be
announced during a press conference at a meeting concerning
planetary formation and detection in Aspen, Colorado, on 7
February, yields an astonishingly complete description of the
pulsar planetary system and confirms that it is remarkably like
a half-size version of our own solar system -- even though the
star these planets orbit is quite different from our Sun.
"Despite the extreme conditions that must have existed at the
time these planets were forming, Nature has managed to create a
planetary system that looks li