Astronomers...I'm looking for information on "New Earths"?

Question

There has been quite a bit in the news recently about finding "New Earths." I am looking for some journal articles that contain the following information:
1. Methods of finding Earth-like planets
2. Characteristics of Earth-like planets
3. Documented Earth-like planets

I have already seen pretty much everything the web has to offer. I'd like references to science journals or scientists working currently researching Earth-like planets.

If you are an astronomer, I'd value anything you may have to say about Earth-like planets too.

An international collaboration of astronomers has discovered a "super-Earth" orbiting in the cold outer regions of a distant solar system about 9,000 light-years away. The planet weighs 13 times as much as Earth, and at minus 330 degrees Fahrenheit, it's one of the coldest planets ever discovered outside our solar system.

Artist conception of a "super-Earth" orbiting a red dwarf star 9,000 light-years away. The 13-Earth-mass planet was detected by a search for microlensing events, in which the gravity of a foreground star distorts the light of a more distant background star. Click image for larger view.
Credit: David A. Aguilar (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
Andrew Gould, leader of the MicroFUN collaboration and professor of astronomy at Ohio State University, pointed to two key implications of the discovery. "First," Gould said, "this icy super-Earth dominates the region around its star that in our solar system is populated by the gas-giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn.

Well, there is evidence of Earth-like planets, please read below:

An international collaboration of astronomers has discovered a "super-Earth" orbiting in the cold outer regions of a distant solar system about 9,000 light-years away. The planet weighs 13 times as much as Earth, and at minus 330 degrees Fahrenheit, it's one of the coldest planets ever discovered outside our solar system.

The 13-Earth-mass planet was detected by a search for microlensing events, in which the gravity of a foreground star distorts the light of a more distant background star. "This icy super-Earth dominates the region around its star that in our solar system is populated by the gas-giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn.

The astronomers have submitted a paper on the planet to Astrophysical Journal Letters, and posted a copy on the Internet preprint server arXiv.org.

I'm looking for more information. Thanks.

Answer 1

http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm

Answer 2

1. Methods of finding Earth-like planets

Ultra hi-rez telescope are in the planning that will be able to resolve earth size planets around nearby stars. Hi-rez spectrographs of these will tell us if there is oxygen in the atmosphere which is a dead giveaway of plant life because free oxygen can't be in an atmosphere without constant replenishment, most likely by plants. Spectrographs will also be able to determine if there is chlorophyll there.

2. Characteristics of Earth-like planets

Free oxygen in the atmosphere; information carrying EM.

3. Documented Earth-like planets

None

Answer 3

Below are links to search engines for professional journals. Some of them (arXiv) will be availible for free, others (linked from ADS) your university should have a subscription for - just try to get on it from a campus web connection.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html
http://arxiv.org/

Current technology isn't percise enough to see Earth-like planets - yet. If you want more info on upcoming missions that SHOULD be able to find them, check out Kepler and the Terrestrial Planet Finder.

Edit: Yeah, I remember that one. Sorry, I don't consider something 13 times bigger than the Earth and as freezing as Pluto to be 'Earth-like'. But hey, I study gamma ray bursts, not planets.

Answer 4

None has yet been found, but plenty of planets that are not Earth like have.

Answer 5

http://www.secretsoftheuniverse.com
http://www.nasa.org