N.A.S.A. Discovers Mega Earth
N.A.S.A.’s Kepler Space Telescope was responsible for Monday's extraordinary discovery, which the space agency’s scientists are naming “Kepler-10c.”
The Washington Post reports that the planet is situated in the Draco constellation, 560 light-years away from Earth.
The discovery has baffled experts, as the hydrogen gas-filled solid planet, should by all accounts, be a gas giant like Jupiter or Saturn instead.
Kepler 10-c has now challenged previously held theories regarding planet formation, and gave new hope for the search for extraterrestrial life, says io9.
Dimitar Sasselov of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics told Discovery News that “Solid planets…as far as we know -- and we know very little about origins of life -- is where we think the chemistry is capable of building molecules which lead to the emergence of life.”
Reach Executive Producer Arash Zandi here. Follow him on Twitter here.