Astronomers spent three years reviewing their findings before announcing the discovery of a potentially rocky neighbor 15 light years away.
A team of astronomers has announced the discovery of the smallest extrasolar planet yet detected. About seven-and-a-half times as massive as Earth, with about twice the radius, it may be the first rocky planet ever found orbiting a normal star not much different from our Sun, according to a National Science Foundation press release.
All of the other planets discovered outside our solar system have been about 15 times as massive as Earth or bigger. This discovery, orbiting the star Gliese 876 in the Aquarius constellation, is thought by scientists to be a rocky world similar to Earth.
But temperatures on the surface wouldn’t support life as we know it. Ranging from 400 to 750 degrees Fahrenheit, the planet is 2 million miles from its star. Earth averages about 93 million miles from its sun, in comparison.
The conjecture that the planet would be rocky comes from its relatively low mass and distance from its sun. Gas giants tend to be much more massive as noted previously.
Gliese 876 is a small, red star known as an M dwarf–the most common type of star in the galaxy. It is located in the constellation Aquarius, and, at about one-third the mass of the sun, is the smallest star around which planets have been discovered.
Scientists have discovered two gas giants around that star before finding the smaller planet. Their findings will be published in The Astrophysical Journal.
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
