BY THE TIME GEOFFREY MARCY stepped up to the microphone, his audience could barely conceal its anticipation. For days, rumors had been circulating around the American Astronomical Society meeting in San Antonio, Texas, that Marcy and his colleague Paul Butler had something big. Then he dropped his bombshell. "We're here," said Marcy, "to announce the discovery of two new planets, orbiting stars similar to the sun." It wasn't the first time such planets have been found. But what made this discovery so exciting was that at least one of the new worlds, about eight times the size of Jupiter, is temperate...
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