Orbit 17 +++ Space and beyond
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Posts tagged CoRoT-7b
Mysterious Distant Planet ‘Disappearing Before Our Eyes’
Jan 10th
Astronomers appear to have caught an exoplanet – a planet orbiting another star – in the middle of a cosmic vanishing act.
The planet, tagged CoRoT-7b, first hit the headlines last September when a team of astronomers confirmed the orb as the smallest exoplanet yet found. Its diameter is roughly 1.7 times that of Earth. Based on its size and mass, its density is similar to Earth’s, indicating that it is a rocky Earth-like orb.
But it wasn’t always this small. Scientists estimate that CoRoT-7b initially tipped the cosmic scales at 100 times more mass than Earth and orbited the star at a distance of about 2.3 million miles.
First Earth-Like Planet Spotted Outside Solar System Likely a Volcanic Wasteland
Jan 7th
How similar is exoplanet CoRoT-7b to Earth? The newly discovered extra-solar planet (depicted in the above artist’s illustration) is the closest physical match yet, with a mass about five Earths and a radius of about 1.7 Earths. Also, the home star to CoRoT-7b, although 500 light years distant, is very similar to our Sun. Unfortunately, the similarities likely end there, as CoRoT-7b orbits its home star well inside the orbit of Mercury, making its year last only 20 hours, and making its peak temperature much hotter than humans might find comfortable. Credit: ESO/L. Calcada
Rocky planets — Earth, Mercury, Venus and Mars — make up half the planets in our solar system. Rocky planets are considered better environments to support life than planets that are mainly gaseous, like the other half of the planets in our system: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
The rocky planet CoRoT-7 b was discovered circling a star some 480 light years from Earth. It is, however, a forbidding place and unlikely to harbor life. That’s because it is so close to its star that temperatures might be above 4,000 degrees F (2,200 C) on the surface lit by its star and as low as minus 350 F (minus 210 C) on its dark side.
Now scientists led by a University of Washington astronomer say that if CoRoT-7 b’s orbit is not almost perfectly circular, then the planet might also be undergoing fierce volcanic eruptions. It could be even more volcanically active than Jupiter’s moon Io, which has more than 400 volcanoes and is the most geologically active object in our solar system.
“If conditions are what we speculate, then CoRoT-7 b could have multiple volcanoes going off continuously and magma flowing all over the surface,” says Rory Barnes, a UW postdoctoral researcher of astronomy and astrobiology. Any planet where the surface is being remade at such a rate is a place nearly impossible for life to get a foothold, he says.