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First Rocky Exoplanet Confirmed

Posted by Soulskill on from the yo-adrian dept.

Matt_dk writes "The confirmation of the nature of CoRoT-7b as the first rocky planet outside our Solar System marks a significant step forward in the search for Earth-like exoplanets. The detection by CoRoT and follow-up radial velocity measurements with HARPS suggest that this exoplanet has a density similar to that of Mercury, Venus, Mars and Earth, making it only the fifth known terrestrial planet in the Universe. The search for a habitable exoplanet is one of the holy grails in astronomy. One of the first steps towards this goal is the detection of terrestrial planets around solar-type stars. Dedicated programs, using telescopes in space and on ground, have yielded evidence for hundreds of planets outside of our Solar System. The majority of these are giant, gaseous planets, but in recent years small, almost Earth-mass planets have been detected, demonstrating that the discovery of Earth analogues — exoplanets with one Earth mass or one Earth radius orbiting a solar-type star at a distance of about 1 astronomical unit — is within reach."

5 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. First Rocky Exoplanet post? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    What do I win

    1. Re:First Rocky Exoplanet post? by thisnamestoolong · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      A kick in the nuts from me for being a jackass.

      --
      To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
    2. Re:First Rocky Exoplanet post? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      I have a device that stabs people in the face over the internet. Would that do?

  2. Re:By the time we get there by hansamurai · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    At this point I think we're just looking for planets.

    --
    Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
  3. you FAIL 1t by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    For the state of the bottoms Butt be a lot slower NIGGER community the channel to sign unpleasant FreeBSD at about 80 consider that right for a living got juggernaut either