William Atkins
Wednesday, 16 September 2009 19:25
Science -
Space
Page 1 of 3
Astronomers have found over 300 exosolar planets (or exoplanets, those orbiting about stars other than the Sun). However, they have all been gaseous objects without a solid surface. For the first time, a rocky exoplanet has been discovered.
Well, that’s the good news because scientists figure that the best chance of finding life on one of these exoplanets is to locate some that are as similar to Earth as possible.
The bad news is that the exoplanet is orbiting so close to its parent star—it orbits once in about 20 hours as compared to Earth with about 365 days; even Mercury, the closest planet in our solar system takes one trip around the Sun in about 88 days)—that its temperature is extremely hot.
In fact, its surface temperature maxs out at about a whooping 1,980 degrees Celsius (3,600 degrees Fahrenheit), and averages between 1,000 and 1,500 degrees Celsius.
Because of this high surface temperature it probably consists of a rocky core of iron, and maybe a lot of lava or water vapor.
[Exoplanet COROT-7b shown passing in front of its parent star COROT-7. Image courtesy of Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COROT-7b).]
One member of the European team is U.S. astronomer
Artie Harzes, who is the director of the Thuringia State Observatory in Germany.
Dr. Harzes states,
"We basically live on a rock ourselves. It's as close to something like the Earth that we've found so far. It's just a little too close to its sun." [Associated Press/Google: “
Astronomers find rocky planet outside solar system”]
Harzes adds,
"It's hot, they're calling it the lava planet.” [AP].
Page two continues with additional information, along with why the name of the first rocky exoplanet discovered by astronomers here on Earth is called COROT-7b.
