Super-Earth on EARTH Magazine

Exoplanet forecast: Quartz with a chance of feldspar

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

CoRoT-7b, in an artist's rendering. EPA

'I hate to break it to you, but that umbrella is really not sufficient for the weather around here.' Callan Bentley

Next time you’re unhappy with the weather, be glad it’s not raining rocks. That seems to happen on CoRoT-7b, a hot, Earth-like planet about 500 light-years away from us. A new modeling study suggests that the exoplanet’s atmosphere is filled with the chemical components of rock, such as oxygen, sodium and silicon monoxide, and whenever these gases condense into clouds, rocky rain likely hammers down onto CoRoT-7b’s sweltering surface. The findings show that planets outside of our solar system can be quite different from ours, and they also suggest that it’s possible to get an oxygen-rich atmosphere by means other than photosynthetic life.

Scientists find watery super-Earth

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

Newly discovered super-Earth GJ 1214b orbits a red dwarf star 40 light-years from Earth in this artist's conception. David A. Aguilar, CfA

The search for Earth-like planets has never looked better. Scientists say they have discovered a water-rich planet that is only 2.7 times larger than Earth. Although positioned just outside the habitable zone for life, the planet gives scientists their best hope yet that other Earth-like planets exist in our universe.

Super-Earths: Mirrors of our world?

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

An artist's conception of the hot Jupiter HD 189733 b, which orbits too close to its star to be habitable. The planet's atmosphere may contain water vapor and methane. NASA

The Gliese 581 system. Only Gliese 581 d, about eight times the mass of Earth, is firmly in the habitable zone (blue), where liquid water oceans might exist. ESO

Fifty light-years from Earth, in the constellation Pegasus, burns a yellow star not unlike our sun. The star, called 51 Pegasi, was one of 142 stars under the watchful gaze of Swiss astronomers Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of the University of Geneva in 1994. From the La Silla Observatory at the southern end of Chile’s vast Atacama Desert, Mayor and Queloz were tracking how these stars move in the sky, hoping to determine whether the stars were alone — or whether any of them might be accompanied by a planet or two.