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Strange New World Discovered: The "Mega Earth"
astroengine (1577233) writes "Meet 'mega-Earth' a souped-up, all-solid planet that, according to theory, should not exist. First spotted by NASA's Kepler space telescope, the planet is about 2.3 times larger than Earth. Computer models show planets that big would be more like Neptune or the other gas planets of the outer solar system since they would have the gravitational heft to collect vast amounts of hydrogen and helium from their primordial cradles. But follow-up observations of the planet, designated as Kepler-10c, show it has 17 times as much mass as Earth, meaning it must be filled with rock and other materials much heavier than hydrogen and helium. 'Kepler-10c is a big problem for the theory,' astronomer Dimitar Sasselov, director of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative, told Discovery News. 'It's nice that we have a solid piece of evidence and measurements for it because that gives motivations to the theorists to improve the theory,' he said."
The galaxies are ACCELERATING away from each other, and we don't have a real solid answer for why.
Cosmology, the study of where all these planets and stuff came from and how, is still a young field with really big and really interesting discoveries yet to be made.
For all of those people claiming that there's nothing new to discover, point them to the stars and ask how the hell that happened.
And the state of the art is getting to the point where we don't need placeholders to conveniently fill in the gaps.
Exciting times.
The second one is not at all ambiguous.
If it's not ambiguous, then it's just wrong.
1 + 1.3 = 2.3. Thus 2.3 is 1.3 more (or larger) than 1.
Similarly, 1 + 2.3 = 3.3. I.e., 3.3 is 2.3 larger than 1.
2.3 is 2.3 times 1. But not "times larger". That confuses addition and multiplation.
If the article had said "2.3 times", and left out "larger", it would have been correct.
"2.3 times larger" is grossly ambiguous in at least 2 different ways:
Until we read further, we are left to guess whether that means 2.3 times the diameter, 2.3 times the volume, or what. A few sentences later they clarify a bit, but it's still sloppy writing.
Second, "times larger" is ambiguous in English. If Earth has diameter 1, then a diameter 2.3 times as large would be 2.3. Technically, a diameter 2.3 times larger would be 3.3 (1 + 2.3).
Call that nitpicking if you want, but it's still sloppy writing.
Okay from the Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K...
The sidebar states 17.2 +/- 1.9 M (M = Earth masses)
It also states that the Radius is aproximately 2.35 R (R = Earth radius)
Surface Gravity is a little over 3x that of Earth.
Unfortunately this probably isn't going to be a liveable world. It's only about a quarter of the distance from its sun that the Earth is. It's mean surface temperature is a whopping 400+ degrees Fahrenheit (so yes, paper would auto-ignite there).
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Gender. As in the blessed lack thereof.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
A little bit pedantic, but it certainly matters as they vary as different powers of the radius. Having 2.3 times the radius would be almost 12.2 times the volume. If the volume was only 2.3 times the Earth's volume, then the radius would only be 1.32 times larger.