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Star Distorts Planet's True Size

Heather Catchpole, ABC Science Online

Professor Chris Tinney from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, who is undertaking a search for exoplanets at the Anglo-Australian Observatory, says the finding was "interesting [but] won't make huge changes in our understanding of the field".

He says astronomers will, "probably take the effects of stellar activity into consideration, but I don't think its going to change the answer very much."

Dr John Greenhill of the University of Tasmania believes the research also highlights the limitation of the transit method in detecting exoplanets, particularly those smaller than Jupiter.

"The two techniques that have netted the most planets, the radial velocity technique and the transit method, are limited by the noisiness of stars," says Greenhill.

"In principle it looks like we won't be able to detect planets [the size of] Neptune and Uranus, and even Saturn using these methods because of that limit."

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