Number 246 (Story #1), October 25, 1995 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein A PLANET ORBITING A NEARBY STAR has been discovered. Astronomers with the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland reported the finding at a recent meeting in Florence, Italy. Planets around pulsars have been detected before, but in the present case the star (51 Pegasus, 40 light years away) is similar to our own sun. The planet is estimated to have a mass at least half that of Jupiter. Its orbit, only about 5% of the earth-sun distance, places it uncomfortably within the star's corona. Following up the announcement in Florence, astronomers at the Lick Observatory in California have confirmed the presence of the planet. At the Florence meeting the possible sighting of another planet was also announced. The star is GL229 (about 30 light years from Earth) while the orbiting object has a mass about 20 times that of Jupiter. An alternative interpretation is that the object is a brown dwarf. (Science News, 21 October 1995.)