With the new idea that there may possible be a planet in another solar system with the same ablilty to support life, many astronomers have been searching for those few planets that could sustain our lifestyles. After searching through the countless mile of space and looking through the stars, astronomers might have found what they have been searching for. One astronomer told CNN that this is the first rocky planet found in another solar system. Although this new discovery has the same composition as the planet that we live on today, all the other aspects that we need to survive aren't present on this planet, called CoRoT-7b.
CoRoT-7b is so close to it's star that one of its years is less than one of our days. Astronomers believe that the planet doesn't rotate like Earth, this means that one side of the planet is always facing the star while the other never sees the light. The possible tempature for the planets 'day face', the side that is always facing the star, is a sweltering hot3,600 plus degrees Fahrenheit. While the possible tempature on the 'night face', the side that faces away from the star, is a frigid minus-328 degress Fahrenheit. With these extremely varing tempatures there is no possible way CoRoT-7b could ever support human life. Even if the tempatures weren't so extreme, the astronomers don't think that there is any atmosphere on this planet to distribute to heat. CoRoT-7b has no may to support us like Earth does.
After the astronomers found out what the surface of this planet was they then searched for some more information. One of the advantages of this planet is that it's close to Earth, being only 500 light years away, this planet is in the constellation of Monoceros, the Unicorn. Since the planet is so close, it has made it much easier for astronomers to figure out more about CoRoT-7b. The scientists that have been studing this planet, have been able to calcute the density which was very exciting to them. They found that it is about the same density as Earth. CoRoT-7b is about 5 times as dense as Earth but is less than half of Earths circumfrence. This is the smallest planet ever scene beyond our solar system, it also has the fastest orit, speeding around its star over seven times faster than Earth sround our Sun. It's amazing that any rock based planet can be more than 23 times closer to the sun than Mercury. Many different astronomers and severally institutions from many places in our world have been a part of this astounding discovery.
For our astronomers to have found a planet with the same inner compostion to Earth is very exciting. After finding this planet, scientist now have more of a confidence that there are more planets out in space that are like are home planet, Earth. This will keep their hopes alive and they will look into this idea with more of a meaning behind thier research. Personally I think that this discovery is very instersing and i hope that our astronomers will continue to look deeper into space to try to find more planets like CoRoT-7b and Earth.
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