HUBBLE WORK RAISES HOPES OF ALIEN LIFE

Copyright 2004 Sentinel Communications Co. 
Orlando Sentinel (Florida)

June 24, 2004 Thursday  
FINAL

SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A11

LENGTH: 195 words

HEADLINE: HUBBLE WORK RAISES HOPES OF ALIEN LIFE

BYLINE: Robert S. Boyd Knight Ridder Newspapers

BODY:
WASHINGTON -- The Hubble Space Telescope may have discovered as many as 100 new planets beyond our solar system that are orbiting stars in the Milky Way galaxy, astronomers say.
If confirmed, that would double the known population of alien planets since the first one was detected nine years ago, according to Steven Beckwith, the director of the Space Science Telescope Institute in Baltimore, which operates Hubble. 
Astronomers are coming to think that almost every sunlike star in the galaxy, and probably in the universe, is accompanied by one or more planets like our solar system, vastly increasing the chance that some form of extraterrestrial life could exist.
Hubble's expected harvest of previously unknown planets stems from a sweep of thousands of stars in the domelike bulge protruding above the flat disk of the Milky Way.
For seven straight days in late February, Kailash Sahu, an astronomer at the Baltimore institute, used the 14-year-old telescope to monitor the amount of light streaming from the brightest stars.
A tiny decrease -- less than a tenth of 1 percent -- in the light was a sign that something, perhaps a planet, was passing in front of the star.

LOAD-DATE: June 24, 2004