Ahem...New Pisces-like Planet discovered
Today: Msnbc.com
Scientists have discovered a new type of alien planet — a steamy waterworld that is larger than Earth but smaller than Uranus.
The standard-bearer for this new class of exoplanet is called GJ 1214b, which astronomers first discovered in December 2009. New observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope suggest that GJ 1214b is a watery world enshrouded by a thick, steamy atmosphere.
"GJ 1214b is like no planet we know of," study lead author Zachory Berta of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., said in a statement. "A huge fraction of its mass is made up of water."
= new reply since forum marked as read
If we find Scotty, Spock or Zephram Cochraine on it!
They botched a perfectly good artifact-story just to bring Scotty back. Better would be to find the "Wall Around a Star"
Since the planet’s mass and size are known, astronomers can calculate the density, of only about 2 grams per cubic centimetre. Water has a density of 1 gram per cubic centimetre, while Earth’s average density is 5.5 grams per cubic centimetre. This suggests that GJ 1214b has much more water than Earth does, and much less rock.
As a result, the internal structure of GJ 1214b would be extraordinarily different from that of our world.
“The high temperatures and high pressures would form exotic materials like ‘hot ice’ or ‘superfluid water’, substances that are completely alien to our everyday experience,” Berta said.
Theorists expect that GJ 1214b formed further out from its star, where water ice was plentiful; later the planet migrated inward towards the star. In the process, it would have passed through the star’s habitable zone, where surface temperatures would be similar to Earth’s. How long it lingered there is unknown.
GJ1214b, shown in this artist’s view, is a super-Earth orbiting a red dwarf star 40 light-years from Earth.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and D. Aguilar (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
more at link:
http://www.universetoday.com/93672/more-details-from-hubble-reveal-strange-exoplanet-is-a-steamy-waterworld/
