Wow!
This planet is too close to its star - 23 times closer than Mercury is to our Sun - to have liquid water, so it's been ruled out as a host for life.
Here's a brief description from the article of how the data was collected and interpreted:
To make this measurement astronomers used the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) spectrograph on the European Southern Observatory's 3.6-meter telescope at La Silla Observatory in Chile. The new data revealed that CoRoT-7b has a mass about five times that of Earth, making it one of the lightest exoplanets yet found.
With the planet's mass and radius, the researchers calculated its density (about 4.7 grams per cubic centimeter), which placed it in firm rocky territory.
"This is the first proof of the detection of a rocky planet," planet-formation theorist Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Washington told SPACE.com.
"It shows that rocky planets really are commonplace," said Boss, who was not involved in the new research. "The estimates are that about 30 percent of sun-like stars have these hot and warm super-Earths, and now that we know the density of one of them, it is easy to make the claim that most of the rest of them are probably rocky too. The evidence is becoming overwhelming that we live in a crowded universe."
With the planet's mass and radius, the researchers calculated its density (about 4.7 grams per cubic centimeter), which placed it in firm rocky territory.
"This is the first proof of the detection of a rocky planet," planet-formation theorist Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Washington told SPACE.com.
"It shows that rocky planets really are commonplace," said Boss, who was not involved in the new research. "The estimates are that about 30 percent of sun-like stars have these hot and warm super-Earths, and now that we know the density of one of them, it is easy to make the claim that most of the rest of them are probably rocky too. The evidence is becoming overwhelming that we live in a crowded universe."
Those who assume we're the only (sometimes) intelligent lifeform in the universe sound increasingly ignorant and arrogant.
posted by Cheryl Shepherd-Adams
