Terrestrial (Rocky) Planet Discovered

KilgoryTrout writes "A 'super-Earth' planet was identified in orbit around mu Arae, a star 50 light years away. It orbits at 2 AUs and surface gravity is 14gs. Two gas giants have been detected in orbit about the star. Space.com's article suggests that it is a failed gas giant's rocky core."

Comments

Interesting for different reasons:

[hoggoth]

This is very interesting, however it isn't the most "Earthlike" planet found yet. There are three planets generally ignored by scientists because they are dead and orbit a neutron star. However they are Earth sized and there is a possibility that in the distant past they may have harbored life.

It would be monumental to find evidence that life on Earth isn't a singleton freak accident, even if we found it on worlds that could never harbor life again.

2AU?

[thhamm]

found a bit more here:

http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2004/pr-2 2-04.html

cant find anything about the 2AU. is that possible? 2AU radius and 10day period?

Wrong numbers

[Euphonious Coward]

It says the super-earth is so close to its star that it orbits in 10 days. A nearby gas giant is orbiting at 2 AU. Also, they say the mass is 14 times that of Earth. That would imply a surface gravity of 14G only if it was the same size as
Earth, which could only happen if it were made out of uranium or something.

I guess a radius 2.4 times that of Earth, if it's made of the same stuff, or less if it has more iron and less silicates.

Re:Is there an astrophysicist in the house?

[elendel]

This being slashdot, post has an error - the planet in question is not 2AU away, rather the other planet in the system is. Quoth the aricle:

"the planet had to form inside the orbit of the larger planet in the system, which orbits the star about twice as far as Earth is from the Sun."

The article is a little short on info, but states of the discovered plane "It completes its tight orbit in less than 10 days" so we can assume it is much closer to the sun.