There is a new class of planet out there that astronomers are calling the "mega-Earth".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27669572
Super interesting article.
Going on holiday abroad would be quite laborious on a planet 17 times larger than ours, especially with our current technology.
Quote:
“It is an object with a hard surface like our own world but much, much bigger.
The necessity for the new designation follows the discovery of a planet which has a mass some 17 times that of Earth.
Known as Kepler-10c, it orbits a star about 560 light-years away. Scientists described its properties at an American Astronomical Society meeting in Boston.
They confess it is something of a head-scratcher.
Theorists had always thought that any planet that large would pull so much hydrogen on to itself that it would look more like a Neptune or a Jupiter.
"We were very surprised when we realised what we had found," said Xavier Dumusque of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), who led the research team.”
“It is an object with a hard surface like our own world but much, much bigger.
The necessity for the new designation follows the discovery of a planet which has a mass some 17 times that of Earth.
Known as Kepler-10c, it orbits a star about 560 light-years away. Scientists described its properties at an American Astronomical Society meeting in Boston.
They confess it is something of a head-scratcher.
Theorists had always thought that any planet that large would pull so much hydrogen on to itself that it would look more like a Neptune or a Jupiter.
"We were very surprised when we realised what we had found," said Xavier Dumusque of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), who led the research team.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27669572
Super interesting article.
Going on holiday abroad would be quite laborious on a planet 17 times larger than ours, especially with our current technology.




