Gemini Planet Imager Planet Search Shows That Giant Planets Orbiting Sun-like Stars May Be Rare

Gemini Planet Imager Planet Search Shows That Giant Planets Orbiting Sun-like Stars May Be Rare PRESS RELEASE DATE June 12, 2019 CONTACT Rebecca McDonald Director of Communications SETI Institute 189 Bernardo Ave., Suite 200 Mountain View, CA 94043... More

Gemini Planet Imager Planet Search Shows That Giant Planets Orbiting Sun-like Stars May Be Rare PRESS RELEASE DATE June 12, 2019 CONTACT Rebecca McDonald Director of Communications SETI Institute 189 Bernardo Ave., Suite 200 Mountain View, CA 94043 rmcdonald@seti.org Finding planets like Jupiter orbiting around sun-like stars is the first step to search for life on other www.seti.org planets. Photo by Marshall Perrin. June 12, 2019, Mountain View, CA -- The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI), a dedicated planet-finding instrument at the Gemini South telescope in Chile, is concluding a 4-year survey - the GPI Exoplanet Survey (GPIES) - of 531 young, nearby stars searching for giant planets. Analysis of half of the survey data to be published in The Astronomical Journal suggests that giant planets orbiting Sun-like stars, slightly more massive than Jupiter in our solar system, may be rare. GPIES is led by Stanford astronomers and includes an international team. “We suspect that in our solar syst Less