glitle,
Thank you for this report.
When we first started detecting extra-solar planets the world of astronomy remarked that there seemed to be a plethora of "large hot Jupiters". This term was used for most of the new planets because they were large compared to Jupiter and very close to their primary - often closer even than is Mercury to our Sol.
Until recently the only detection method we had was to observe the wobble of a star caused by a planet in orbit. And Tom wondered, in both private discussions and in some USENET discussions, about resonance effects creating the possibility of mistaking two smaller planets farther away from the star for one larger planet closer in.
He thought that wobble data could be inherently ambiguous in this way, but I'm not sure that he originated this idea.
I'm in the process of trying to find some of those old discssions in the USENET (now Google Groups) archives. If I'm successful I'll let you know. But remembering this and seeing this "crowded" solar system report makes me wonder if the term "large hot Earth" might become common in the comming years.
A newer detection method observes the dimming of a star when a planet transits between it and us. It <u>might</u> be less prone to the sort of ambiguity mentioned above. But it can only detect planets within the small fraction of systems that happen to be oriented edge-on to us.
LB
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