Measuring exoplanet mass the hard way
A simple and elegant (but hard) alternative method for measuring exoplanet masses.
Voyages through the Final Frontier: The Case of HD97658b.
This paper describes the detection of transits for a planet previously identified via radial velocities (RVs). Measuring the properties of the planet with both the transit and RV method allows the authors to determine the density, which suggests it should have a lot of volatiles (e.g. H2O, CO2, etc). This discovery is particularly exciting because the planet orbits a bright, nearby star: ideal for follow-up observations to characterize its atmosphere!