Scientists 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.
A new study of the planet, which orbits a star 500 light years away, has shown that its density is similar to Earth's, indicating it is a solid rocky world.
Known as COROT-7b, it was discovered in February this year by the European space telescope COROT, which had been tracking the star it circles.
"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 over 2,000 C, too toasty to sustain life. It circles its star in just 20 hours, zipping around at 750,000 km/h. By comparison, Mercury, the planet nearest our sun, completes its solar orbit in 88 days.
"It's hot. They're calling it the lava planet," Hartzes said.
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. It was the buzz of a conference on finding an Earth-like planet outside our solar system, held in Barcelona, Spain, where the discovery was presented Wednesday morning. The find is also being published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
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