William Atkins
Tuesday, 03 March 2009 23:53
Science -
Space
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A French-led astronomy team found the smallest exolanet ever discovered directly. Even though it is just over 11 times the size of Earth, it could be a gigantic discovery in the world of extrasolar planets, or exoplanets.
French astronomer
Daniel Rouan, of the Observatory of Paris (in Meudon, France) made the discovery along with his team of astronomers.
The tiny exoplanet is named COROT-Exo-7b, and is located about 450 light-years away from our Solar System.\
In other words, the light these astronomers saw while discovering this far-away planet is the light that was emitted from its mother star about 450 years ago.
It was discovered when it passed in front of its mother star, which blocked just a tiny amount of starlight—just enough, though, for astronomers to observe in their telescopes.
COROT-Exo-7b is about twice the diameter of Earth so is classified as a hot superEarth.
It is called a “hot” exoplanet because it orbits its star at a very close distance, too close for life to exist, at least as far as we think about living organisms.
In addition, it orbits once around its star in only 20 hours, while Earth orbits the Sun in one year—much, much longer in time because we are much further away from the Sun than COROT-Exo-7b is from its star.
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