A lava-covered exoplanet was discovered relatively close to Earth

To contact us Click HERE

 "Astronomers have discovered a planet orbiting a star located just 33 light years away from our planet being nearest celestial body of this type found so far. Exoplanet is smaller than Earth, its diameter is 66% of that of our planet."




Newly discovered planet is covered with molten lava and volcanoes, temperate from surface to over 500 degrees Celsius. Researchers say that if this planet had an atmosphere that evaporated long ago. The reason evaporation near the planet's atmosphere is the star that orbits, extreme heat is the cause of this event. Moreover, exoplanet orbiting its star in a record time of only 1.4 Earth days.Exoplanet was named UCF-1.01, but currently not received official planet status, this will take place after scientists will measure the mass. "Although we have not confirmed the mass of the planet, the research team is confident that future observations will confirm our discovery," said Joseph Harrington, a professor of planetary science at the  University of Central Florida .The team led by Professor Harrington found this planet GJ 436b when watching a planet orbiting another star same, and observed variations in the amount of infrared light emitted by the star. "I knew that if these variations are periodic, may be caused by an unknown planet," said Kevin Stevenson, a member of the doctoral researchers.The discovery is all the more unusual as the planets smaller than Earth are very difficult to see.Kepler telescope used by NASA to identify exoplanets, discovered so far 1,800 stars with planetary systems, but only 3 of them contain exoplanets smaller than Earth.Source: Discovery , iScienceTimes
Discover true performance, vote and win an iPad 3!Tags: exoplanet | lava | volcanoes | discovery

'via Blog this'