.
First spotted by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, the planet is
about 2.3 times larger than Earth. Computer models showed planets that
big would be more like Neptune or the other gas planets of the outer
solar system because they would have the gravitational heft and time to
collect vast amounts of hydrogen and helium from their primordial
cradles.
GALLERY: The Most Horrific Alien Planets In Our Galaxy
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.
Scientists aren’t sure how mega-Earths, or their diminutive cousins, super-Earths, form, nor why our solar system has nothing in between the largest rocky planet, Earth, and the smallest gas giant, Neptune.
NASA's Kepler telescope was launched to find other planets
just like Earth -- and now, scientists think they may have found not
just one, but three! Trace shows us where they are in the solar system
and why the discovery is so important.
DCI
GALLERY: The Most Horrific Alien Planets In Our Galaxy
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.
Scientists aren’t sure how mega-Earths, or their diminutive cousins, super-Earths, form, nor why our solar system has nothing in between the largest rocky planet, Earth, and the smallest gas giant, Neptune.
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