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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – - Astronomers have found a mini planet beyond our solar system that is the smallest of more than 800 extra-solar planets discovered, scientists said on Wednesday.

The planet, known as Kepler-37b, is one of three circling a yellow star similar to the sun that is located in the constellation Lyra, about 210 light years away. One light year is about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km).

“We see very large planets and they’re uncommon. Earth-sized planets seen to be pretty common, so our guess is that small planets must be even more common,” said Thomas Barclay, with NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California.

The smaller the planet, the more difficult it is to find.

Kepler-37b, as well as two sibling planets, were discovered with a NASA space telescope of the same name, which studies light from about 150,000 sun-like stars.

The Kepler telescope works by detecting slight dips in the amount of light coming from target stars caused by orbiting planets passing by, or transiting, relative to the observatory’s line of sight. The smaller the planet, the less pronounced the dip.

Of the 833 confirmed planets found beyond the solar system, 114 were discovered by the Kepler science team, according to the project’s website. Nearly 3,000 more Kepler candidate planets are being analyzed.

Planets located in “habitable zones” around their host stars, where water can exist on their surfaces, are of particular interest. Water is believed to be necessary for life.

A planet positioned about where Earth orbits the sun would take a year to fly around its parent star. At least two, and preferably three or more, orbits are needed to confirm that a transit spotted by the Kepler telescope is indeed a planet and not a star flare or some other phenomenon.

Kepler-37b flies about 10 times closer to its star than Earth circles the sun, which gives it a surface temperature of about 800 degrees Fahrenheit (427 degrees Celsius).

“This particular one is nowhere near habitable,” University of Florida astronomer Eric Ford said.

Mercury is the closet planet to the sun in our solar system, so scientists compared Kepler-37b to a mini Mercury.

The little planet, which is slightly larger than Earth’s moon, has two somewhat larger siblings. Kepler-37c, which is slightly smaller than Venus, circles the trio’s parent star in 21 days and Kepler-37d, about twice the size of Earth, orbits in 40 days.

The whole system would fit within the orbit of Mercury, which circles the sun in 88 days.

“When we first found exo-planets, they were all much larger than anything we have in the inner solar system. We didn’t know of anything that was smaller. This is the first time we’ve been able to probe the smallest range, smaller than anything we have in our solar system,” Barclay said.

The research was published in this week’s Nature.

(Editing by Jane Sutton and Stacey Joyce)

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea launched its first space rocket carrying a science satellite on Wednesday amid heightened regional tensions, caused in part, by North Korea’s successful launch of its own rocket last month.

It was South Korea’s third attempt to launch a civilian rocket to send a satellite in orbit in the past four years and came after two previous launches were aborted at the eleventh hour last year due to technical glitches.

The launch vehicle, named Naro, lifted off from South Korea’s space center on the south coast and successfully went through stage separation before entering orbit, officials at the mission control said. Previous launches failed within minutes.

South Korea’s rocket program has angered neighbor North Korea, which says it is unjust for it to be singled out for U.N. sanctions for launching long-range rockets as part of its space program to put a satellite into orbit.

North Korea’s test in December showed it had the capacity to deliver a rocket that could travel 10,000 km (6,200 miles), potentially putting San Francisco in range, according to an intelligence assessment by South Korea.

However, it is not believed to have the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting the continental United States.

The test in December was considered a success, at least partially, by demonstrating an ability to put an object in space.

But the satellite, as claimed by the North, is not believed to be functioning.

South Korea is already far behind regional rivals China and Japan in the effort to build space rockets to put satellites into orbit and has relied on other countries, including Russia, to launch them.

Launch attempts in 2009 and 2010 ended in failure.

The first stage booster of the South Korean rocket was built by Russia. South Korea has produced several satellites and has relied on other countries to put them in orbit.

South Korea wants to build a rocket on its own by 2018 and eventually send a probe to the moon.

(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

A 300m-wide asteroid will not hit the Earth in 2036, US astronomers say.

It was thought there was a one-in-200,000 chance that it could strike on 13 April 2036, but revised calculations have now ruled this out.

Instead, Nasa scientists said it would not get closer than 31,000km as it flies past on this date.

They were able to study the rocky mass as it made a relatively close approach above our planet, allowing them to better assess its future threat.

"Radar data we have collected over the past couple of weeks have completely excluded any chance of impact in 2036. Furthermore, we can now precisely predict its trajectory decades into the future," Marina Brozovic of the Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory told the BBC Stargazing Live programme.

The Apophis asteroid is named after the Egyptian demon of destruction and darkness.

Hazardous asteroids

It caused alarm after it was discovered in 2004, when scientists thought it could have a one-in-45 chance of smashing into the Earth in 2029.

Improved calculations later lifted this threat, but until this week, the very tiny but real chance of a hit in 2036 remained.

If an asteroid of this size did smash into Earth, it would strike with the energy of about 100 of our largest nuclear bombs.

But for now, this has been ruled out – at least for Apophis.

Scientists are becoming increasingly interested in potentially hazardous asteroids.

So far, they have catalogued more than 9,000 of them, and spot on average another 800 new ones each year.

One recent discovery is 2012 DA14. On 15 February, this rock, which measures about 45m in diameter, will pass about 36,000km from the Earth.

This is closer to the Earth than some satellites, but again scientists say there is no chance of a collision.

2012 DA14 should be visible with binoculars or small telescopes.

The world's mostly southerly herd of reindeer is to be culled to try to save the environment of the island of South Georgia.

The 3,000 reindeer are trampling native plants, causing erosion and endangering king penguins and other local birds by destroying their nests and habitat.

A team of Sami herdsmen from Norway have arrived and are preparing to round up and kill the reindeer.

The operation is expected to take two southern hemisphere summers.

The reindeer is more commonly seen in the Arctic, but Norwegians in need of fresh meat while on whaling missions in Antarctica brought a small herd of 10 reindeer to South Georgia in 1911.

And it is Norwegians who have been tasked with getting rid of the invasive species. The Sami people live with reindeer and their expertise is being drawn on in the cull.

Reidar Andersen, director of the Norwegian Nature Inspectorate which oversees the team, told the Reuters news agency: "The reindeer have become very destructive."

The Sami are preparing corrals into which they will herd the reindeer, then slaughter them with a captive bolt gun shot to the head. Isolated beasts may be shot with rifles.

The reindeer meat will be taken to the Falkland Islands for sale, as South Georgia has no permanent population and is only visited by scientists and government officers.

The cull is the second eradication programme being mounted on South Georgia at the moment. A bigger task is to rid the territory of its rats, which arrived on board sealing and whaling vessels throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.

From February scientists will target 220 square miles (580 sq km) with poison pellets to reduce the rat population, which is estimated at 200 million. A trial programme in 2011 appears to have been successful and scientists hope that seabird numbers will rise if they can get rid of the vermin.

The rats have no natural predators and eat the seabirds' eggs and chicks. Two of the indigenous bird species – the South Georgia pipit and pintail – are particularly at risk.

Scientists say they have already seen a rise in sea bird numbers and hope that the islands will again support a population of 100 million birds.

US energy companies are racing to install wind turbines before a federal tax credit expires at the end of this year.

The government subsidy works out at 2.2 cents per kilowatt hour of power produced over ten years. This amounts to around $1m (£620,000) for every large turbine. However the deadline is absolute – to get the money the blades on new installations must be turning and generating power before the 31st of December.

"There's a lot of rushing right now to get projects completed by the end of the year," says Rob Gramlich, senior vice president at the American Wind Energy Association.

"It is not a great way to run a business with this policy-induced uncertainty."

The tax credit has proved contentious with some lawmakers criticising it as too generous. It lapsed previously in 1999, 2001 and 2003. Each time it lead to a collapse in new construction.

The American Wind Energy Association are hoping the tax credit will be passed as part of a compromise package of legislation to help the US avoid the so-called fiscal cliff. The say the most likely outcome is a short term extension of the subsidy.

"There's a good chance we could get this extension, it is very hard to predict, but the industry is not making bets on the Congress getting it done," says Mr Gramlich,

Even if there is an extension there is likely to be a significant curtailment of wind installations in 2013. Wind energy companies say they need longer time frames to negotiate deals to sell the power they generate.

Iberdrola Renewables is the second largest developer of wind power projects in the United States. The company is racing to finalise new wind installations in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

However the prospects for new turbines in 2013 are slim according to Paul Copleman, communications manager for Iberdrola.

"Even if the tax credit is extended, our new construction plans likely will be ramped back substantially in 2013 compared with the last few years. So much time has passed without certainty that a normal one-year extension would not be a game-changer for our 2013 build plans."

Some analysts argue that all subsidies to wind should end and the industry should stand on its own two feet. They say that the current arrangements mean that energy companies continue to make money even when there is a surplus of wind and the market price is negative.

Dan Kish is with the Institute for Energy Research, a body long critical of subsidies for renewables. He told BBC News the extension of the tax credit was expensive, unnecessary and destabilising to the electricity grid.

"Wind produces power at a fraction of its stated capacity, and is increasingly adding unnecessary costs to consumers, just as it is in the UK," he said

"They are creations of government and serve only to make their builders and owners wealthy at the expense of the public."

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A team of British scientists, engineers and logistics experts has launched a daring attempt to hunt for life deep beneath the Antarctic ice. The research project will see the group drill 3.2km (two miles) down to Lake Ellsworth – hidden for hundreds of thousands of years. Click on the labels below to find out more about the mission and life at the drilling camp.

Images and video courtesy of Pete Bucktrout of the British Antarctic Survey. Graphic not to scale.

Produced by: Lucy Rodgers, Mick Ruddy and Steven Connor

The government has announced that it will remove a temporary ban on hydraulic fracturing across the UK.

Fracking, as it is known, is a controversial technique for recovering gas and oil from shale rock. But how concerned should people be about the environmental impacts?

Hydraulic fracturing is widely used across the US to exploit reserves of oil and gas that were once believed to be inaccessible.

But in the UK, the use of fracking was halted in 2011 after some minor earthquakes near Blackpool, in north-west England, were attributed to test wells being drilled by the energy company Cuadrilla.

The company carried out its own report into the incident and found that it was "most likely" that the seismic events were caused by the direct injection of fluid into the fault zone.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change (Decc) then asked three experts to make an independent assessment. Their report indicated that future earthquakes as a result of fracking could not be ruled out – but the risk from these tremors was low and structural damage extremely unlikely. The experts also made recommendations on how to minimise these risks.

Another review, carried out by the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering, also gave fracking the green light – provided that strong regulations were in place.

Earthquake issues have also been attributed to fracking in British Columbia, Canada, and in some parts of the United States.

But according to the Francis Egan, chief executive of Cuadrilla, there needs to be a sense of proportion about the risk of earthquakes from fracking.

"If you look at the British Geological Survey website, in the last two months alone there were nine events of the same magnitude," he told BBC News.

"We have a host of measures in place to ensure there is no recurrence."

It is expected that if fracking resumes in the UK, the government will insist on constant monitoring and a threshold of seismic activity.

If fracking causes a tremor above the limit, it could lead to a suspension of drilling.

Many people have concerns about the fluid used in fracking. It is normally a mixture of water, sand and some chemicals that is pumped into the well under high pressure to force the gas from the rock.

There have been worries that the fluid is dangerous – suspicions that were fuelled by the reluctance of many companies in the US to disclose what's exactly in the mixture. Democrats in the US Congress released a report that detailed some 750 different chemicals and other components used in fracking fluid.

In the UK, Cuadrilla has been open about what is in its fracking mixture.

But the liquid going down into the well isn't the whole story.

Fracking requires tens of millions of litres of fluid – much of what goes down the well comes back up as "produced water".

It can contain a mixture of organic hydrocarbons, and naturally occurring radioactive material.

In the US, this water is often stored in open pits before it is processed but in the UK the pits will have to be covered.

In many locations where the facilities don't exist on site, the water has to be trucked away to be cleaned.

Prof Richard Davies, director of the Durham Energy Institute, says that this would also be the likely scenario in the UK if fracking becomes more widespread.

"It'll be a bit like Pennsylvania, where a whole industry has grown up to deal with waste-water," he said. "We'll have to clean the water if we want to re-use it."

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has suggested ways of cleaning up the water that is used in shale gas exploitation. The IEA says that the technologies to address these issues exist or are in development and if they are adopted, fracking might be more widely accepted.

The other water issue associated with fracking is the potential of the technology to contaminate existing drinking supplies. In the US, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) investigated complaints from residents in Pavillion, Wyoming, who complained that fracking was affecting their drinking water.

The EPA's initial report concluded that there was a link with the waste-water produced by drilling for gas. Further investigations into this incident haven't yet conclusively shown the sources of contamination.

There have been many other reports of a similar impact on drinking water from people living near fracking operations across the US.

Prof Davies says that when water has been contaminated in the US it has not been the fault of fracking. It has been as a result of cracks in the wells or surface spillages.

"We have been distracted by hydraulic fracturing," he told BBC News. "It is really at the bottom of the list when it comes to contaminating water supplies. Drilling wells properly and cementing them are the critical things."

In a report published in the journal Marine and Petroleum Geology, Prof Davies found that in the UK the possibility of fracking causing rogue fractures that would allow methane gas to contaminate water was a fraction of 1%.

The study recommended a minimum vertical separation distance between fracking wells and water supplies of 600m (2,000ft).

Some scientists have proposed adding chemical tracers to fracking fluids as a way of confirming that any contamination of drinking water comes from the drilling process.

Horizontal drilling can offer many advantages to the gas extraction process, allowing wells to be drilled in several directions from one pad. But there are downsides as well. Horizontal drilling means companies can extract oil and gas from locations that were once inaccessible, and these may be under built-up areas as they are in several cities in the US.

The disruption that this can cause is considerable. Road traffic, drilling noise, and the danger of accidental fuel spillages are all associated with the process.

Mark Boling, executive vice president with Southwestern Energy, a US oil and gas exploration company that uses fracking technology, says the fracking industry needs to be more honest about the real impacts.

"We need to think more innovatively above the ground," he told BBC News. "We need to figure how to do better on surface impacts, water supply, water transfer and disposal, drilling locations – we really didn't come out and say, 'yes, these are risks, and there are obstacles'."

Mr Boling says that in many parts of the US, people have accepted the technology because they have seen a direct financial benefit from selling mineral rights. That's not something that pertains in the UK.

"You are going to have even more difficulty where the minerals are owned by the Crown – if you don't have something that is going to put money in the pockets of people that are suffering through all the trucks, road damage the compressor noise all these sorts of things."

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Frustration at slow progress of the UN climate talks bubbled over when a spokesman for small island states (AOSIS) rounded on rich nations.

US representative Jonathan Pershing had been discussing plans to compensate poor nations for losses due to damage from climate change.

But AOSIS spokesman Ronald Jumeau condemned wealthy countries for their lack of urgency.

The UN talks are into their second week in the Qatari capital.

Mr Jumeau said that there would be no need for talk about compensation if the rich had cut their emissions in previous meetings.

"The Doha caravan seems to be lost in the sand," he told a joint news conference. "As far as ambition is concerned, we are lost.

"We're past the mitigation (emissions cuts) and adaptation eras. We're now right into the era of loss and damage. What's next after that? Destruction? Disappearance of some of our islands?

"We're already into the era of re-location. But after loss and damage there will be mass re-locations if we continue with this loss of ambition."

The issue of compensation for climate losses looks set to become a major focus for negotiations at the conference.

The task of the meeting is to wind up negotiations under talks associated with the existing Kyoto Protocol on cutting emissions of greenhouse gases, and move towards a new treaty in 2015 binding all nations, rich and poor in tackling climate change.

Developing countries are attempting to bolt down as many commitments as possible and they sense that there may be some movement on a new mechanism for loss and damage.

The idea is being backed in a petition to governments by 44 NGOs representing millions of people concerned about the impacts of climate change. It has been led by Care.

"The first and foremost response must be to immediately and dramatically cut emissions and help vulnerable countries and ecosystems adapt to new climate realities, " it says. "Governments must now also recognize that we are in a "third era" and redress the permanent loss and damage from climate impacts.

"Given historic inaction by developed countries we are heading for the biggest social injustice of our time."

They urge governments to establish a formal mechanism for loss and damage (the word "compensation" is being avoided; some nations, including the US won't countenance it because of the implication of guilt). They also want the UN to monitor and assess losses, and to find new approaches for addressing loss and damage, particularly for slow-onset events like, say, sea level rise.

Nick Mabey from the think-tank E3G told BBC News it was useful that the issue of long-term risk might become embedded in the negotiations. There were costs, he said, to avoiding action to cut emissions:

"The debate on loss and damage brings an important new dimension to the climate negotiations. The costs of failing to reduce climate risk must be internalised in the negotiations or agreement will be reached merely by lowering ambition for mitigation ."

"With a truly global agreement now possible in 2015, countries must now decide how much climate risk they are willing to take and what they are willing to do to reduce their exposure."

Mr Jumeau, from the Seychelles, went out of his way to praise the UK for its leadership on climate change, especially for its re-stated pledges of increased finance to help poor nations get clean energy – £1.8bn by 2015.

Germany followed by promising to increase its contributions further.

A spokesman for the UK delegation told BBC News: "The UK is still taking part in important negotiations around loss and damage. So far, we have indentified a number of areas where parties agree and we are working hard to find common agreement on the way forward."

Back in the UK, the Chancellor George Osborne was facing complaints from some Conservatives that money was going on climate finance when budgets were being cut for services in Britain.

His gas strategy, published alongside the Autumn Statement, confirms that he wants to review and maybe scrap the UK's unilateral targets on reducing emissions.

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Ed Davey has said he does not want to see wind turbines "all over the countryside" but they have an important role to play in future energy supply.

"I did not agree with what he said. I have tried to reassure people that that is not the case and that is not the policy."

Asked about the government's strategy, Mr Davey said on-shore wind farms with potential generating capacity of a seven gigawatts (GW) were currently seeking planning consent, in addition to eleven gigawatts of plant either already built or approved.

"I do not believe that all that seven GW will end up getting consented," he said. "There is a quite high attrition rate of some of these planning permissions. I can't predict exactly where we will end up – I am not in charge of local planning."

But he insisted the UK was on target to meet the expectation – set out in its renewable "roadmap" – of the scale of on-shore wind's contribution to UK energy by 2020.

"There is no cap and no limit on it but we want to pursue onshore wind in a sensible way," he said.

"I really don't want to see on-shore wind all over the English countryside, I don't want that at all. But I do think there are parts of the country that are more welcoming than others for on-shore wind and I think they should get the benefit from that."

Amid reports of divisions between the Conservatives and Lib Dems MPs, ministers have been urged to set clear targets for clean energy in 2030 in the government's forthcoming energy bill.

Mr Davey said he personally believed that such a move was "attractive" but he would not pre-judge discussions in government ahead of the bill's publication next week.

"I do not apologise for discussing with my coalition colleagues to get to a settlement where we can say to parliament, to industry and the world, that this coalition government now has a settled position on energy policy."

It has been claimed that firms will only invest enough in new renewables if the 2030 target is fixed in future legislation.

The BBC's environment analyst Roger Harrabin said chancellor George Osborne rejects the target and the coalition was seeking a compromise acceptable to the Lib Dems such as committing to the principle but leaving details until after the next election.

The energy secretary told MPs that the coalition partners would agree a settled policy and "both parties would support it".

The DNA of endangered trees found only in the Caucasus Mountains will be analysed by a botanist in Devon and a London university in a bid to find out more information about their evolution.

The birch tree seeds have been brought back to Devon by Paul Bartlett, from Stone Lane Gardens, in Chagford.

Scientists from Queen Mary, University of London, plan to test three species of birch found only in the mountain range, which extends across several countries including Georgia, southern Russia and Azerbaijan.

Mr Bartlett said he believed the research had never been done before and was new to science.

He said: "The trees have been grown in the UK in the past, using seed sent by Caucasian botanists, but the seed I have collected is possibly the first seed brought back by anyone from the UK."

Mr Bartlett will germinate the seeds and raise the seedlings in Devon.

Tissue samples will then be sent to the university for analysis, which includes counting the number of chromosomes, which house the genetic code DNA.

Mr Bartlett said: "I can then use that information to decide which birch they are likely to be related to.

"Eventually they can produce a kind of fingerprint of that species, which enables them [scientists] to check against other plant DNA to determine whether they are the same species or not."

Mr Bartlett will also send the seedlings to other plant collections for further study.

Mr Bartlett said: "Despite trees [those found in the mountains] being grown in several botanic gardens in the UK, we know very little about their populations in the wild."

He was in the Caucasus Mountains for three weeks studying the species Betula medwedewii, Betula raddeana and Betula litwinowii.

He studied where the trees grow and what altitude they prefer, what height and shape they grow in the wild and what competition and dangers the birch species face.

"I am hoping that the results of my research will broaden the English-speaking world's knowledge of the birch species that are endemic to the region.

"They are very rare, even in the wild," he said.

He said that apart from the work of Kenneth Ashburner, who was the deceased founder of Stone Lane Gardens, and birch expert Hugh McAllister, the only research published on the species in the wild were by Russian and Georgian botanists.

He added that he was not aware of any new research published in English.

Mr Bartlett plans to publish his research in a number of publications, including one by the Royal Horticultural Society.