| Scientists are telling us that they have confirmed the first ever rocky planet outside of our Solar System. Up until now they have only been able to confirm non-solid planets, but there are many which are suspected to be made from rock and metals, and this is the first-ever to be confirmed as so. The planet in question is named Corot 7b, and it orbits a Sun, just like the Earth, but the heat on the surface of that planet is said to be considerably higher than on our planet, hence there is probably no chance of anything living being able to survive on it. But it does atleast offer us a glimpse of another Earth-like planet, which has some of the attributes required for supporting life forms, and this finding will be celebrated by scientists the world over.
COROT 7B - THE SOLID PLANET
Only scientists could come up with such an unromantic name for a planet, but when you get past the name, you begin to find more than brief similarities with our own planet. Corot 7B orbits a large star called Corot 7 and it is made up from rocks and metals, which the Earth is also made from. Both of these things are important for the growth and colonisation of living beings, but we should not get too excited right away, because the living conditions do not seem to be in place. For example, while it takes the Earth about 366.2 days to orbit our Sun, Corot 7B circles it's own Sun in a mere 20 hours. This is mainly because of their close proximity. They are only about 1.5 million miles away from each other, whereas the Earth is over 90 million miles away from our Sun. This leads to tremendous temperatures on Corot 7B, up to 1,500 degrees Celsius according to some scientists, so it is believed that the surface would actually be covered in either boiling oceans of water or larvae.
SIZE AIN'T EVERYTHING!
Just like the Earth, Corot 7B is also quite small when compared to it's Sun. Check out the picture above, that black speck is the planet! And both planets are quite similar in diameter too, with Corot 7B being 1.7 times the diameter of the Earth, whilst containing over 5 times the mass of our little old green & blue planet. But the most exciting prospect has to be the thoughts of this faraway ball of rock and metal being confirmed as an ocean planet. Up until now this was one of those things which creationists continually brought up; they argue that if evolution was the truth, where was all of the other the life-supporting planets? It seem that the 21st century may be about to offer that evidence, with some mini hurdles being overcome lately. Our technology is getting better, meaning that we can view more distant places and we can also reassess the physical make-up of the known planets in greater detail too. The re-emergence of a working Hubble will no doubt help to play a big part in that. We have also ‘touched water’ on Mars just a few months ago, and now we are confirming the first-ever solid planet outside of our Solar System. There is definitely some sort of evolution at play here, even if it is only in our knowledge, investigative techniques and camera technology. |
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