First 'Solid' Planet Found Outside Solar System

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First 'Solid' Planet Found Outside Solar System
OP - September 17, 2009, 10:05 AM

First 'Solid' Planet Found Outside Solar System

As scientists search the skies for life elsewhere, they have found more than 300 planets outside our solar system, but they all have been gas balls or can't be proven to be solid. Now a team of European astronomers has confirmed the first rocky extrasolar planet.

Scientists have long figured that if life begins on a planet it needs a solid surface to rest on so finding one elsewhere is a big deal.

"We basically live on a rock ourselves," said co-discoverer Artie Hartzes, director of the Thuringer observatory in Germany. "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."

So close that its surface temperature is more than 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit, too toasty to sustain life. It circles its star in just 20 hours, zipping around at 466,000 mph. By comparison, Mercury, the planet nearest our sun, completes its solar orbit in 88 days.

This is a major discovery in the field of trying to find life elsewhere in the universe, said outside expert Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution.

The planet is called Corot-7b. It was first discovered earlier this year. European scientists then watched it dozens of times to measure its density to prove that it is rocky like Earth. It's in our general neighborhood, circling a star in the winter sky about 500 light-years away.

In addition, the planet is about as close to Earth in size as any other planet found outside our solar system. Its radius is only one-and-a-half times bigger than Earth's and it has a mass about five times the Earth's.

Now that another rocky planet has been found so close to its own star, it gives scientists more confidence that they'll find more Earth-like planets farther away, where the conditions could be more favorable to life, Boss said.

"The evidence is becoming overwhelming that we live in a crowded universe," Boss said.

Mega coolness.

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Re: First 'Solid' Planet Found Outside Solar System
Reply #1 - September 17, 2009, 12:42 PM

Very cool, but why do they pick such naff names? I mean: Corot-7b WTF?

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Re: First 'Solid' Planet Found Outside Solar System
Reply #2 - September 17, 2009, 12:46 PM

It's a fukn hot rock 500 light years away. Nobody's ever going to be reading travel brochures for the place anyway.

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Re: First 'Solid' Planet Found Outside Solar System
Reply #3 - September 17, 2009, 12:48 PM

So is mercury and venus, but they still sound good.

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Re: First 'Solid' Planet Found Outside Solar System
Reply #4 - September 17, 2009, 12:53 PM

Yeah but they were named before we started finding lotsa stuff so these days we have to carefully conserve the cool names or we'll only have daggy names left when we find something awesome.

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Re: First 'Solid' Planet Found Outside Solar System
Reply #5 - September 17, 2009, 10:24 PM

I have heard this claim b4 and dont understand it - the OP states that life require a solid surface and certain temperatures to exist? Who says so? They are only referring to life 'as we know it'

P.S Uranus is the best named planet

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Re: First 'Solid' Planet Found Outside Solar System
Reply #6 - September 17, 2009, 10:30 PM

Well yeah, but at 3,500 degrees (double the melting point of iron) I think you'll have a hard time establishing any sort of ecosystem.

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Re: First 'Solid' Planet Found Outside Solar System
Reply #7 - September 17, 2009, 10:39 PM

Quote from: IsLame on September 17, 2009, 10:24 PM
I have heard this claim b4 and dont understand it - the OP states that life require a solid surface and certain temperatures to exist? Who says so? They are only referring to life 'as we know it'

P.S Uranus is the best named planet

It'd be a bit pointless looking at random planets for life when we wouldn't know what to look for. Considering the temperature of that planet it is doubtful that it contains life anyway.

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Re: First 'Solid' Planet Found Outside Solar System
Reply #8 - September 17, 2009, 10:40 PM

Quote from: IsLame on September 17, 2009, 10:24 PM
I have heard this claim b4 and dont understand it - the OP states that life require a solid surface and certain temperatures to exist? Who says so? They are only referring to life 'as we know it'

P.S Uranus is the best named planet

It must have been fun for you guys back then at school. If you look at a picture of that planet and say to your mate, hey look I see Uranus!

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Re: First 'Solid' Planet Found Outside Solar System
Reply #9 - September 17, 2009, 10:46 PM

Quote from: osmanthus on September 17, 2009, 10:30 PM
Well yeah, but at 3,500 degrees (double the melting point of iron) I think you'll have a hard time establishing any sort of ecosystem.

Dont you mean an ecosystem as we know it? From how I see it natural selection & evolution is not predjudiced to one set of conditions, and can acclimatise in theory anywhere.

It may not be life as we know it, so might not even be able to recognise it (see, hear feel), but the ecosystem around it might.

Much the same way that no-one knew bacteria existed 10,000 years ago.

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Re: First 'Solid' Planet Found Outside Solar System
Reply #10 - September 17, 2009, 11:02 PM

Quote
It may not be life as we know it

Come on Islame the trekkie convention is now over!
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Re: First 'Solid' Planet Found Outside Solar System
Reply #11 - September 17, 2009, 11:08 PM

nannoo nannoo

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