Astronomers detect first Earth-size planets orbiting another star

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/astronomers-detect-first-earth-sized-planets-orbiting-another-star/2011/12/20/gIQAuRIJ7O_story.html

In a milestone hailed by scientists as a key step toward finding another Earth-like world, astronomers Tuesday announced the discovery of two blazingly hot planets roughly the size of Earth some 950 light years distant.

The discovery “demonstrates for first time that Earth-size planets exist around other stars, and that we can detect them,” said Francois Fressin, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who led the discovery team.

The two planets orbit a star much like our sun, but they whiz around it so fast and so close that their surfaces sizzle like frying pans.