You may have heard that a rocky planet, Kepler 10c, has been found, that is 17 times the mass of the Earth. The main reason that this is surprising is that current models predict that once a rocky core more massive than about 12 times the mass of the Earth forms, this core would accrete gas from the disk surrounding the parent star, turning it into a gas giant (like Jupiter) rather than a rocky planet. It is also interesting that this planet is about 11 billion years old, thus much older than the Earth. This means that Earth-like planets could have formed relatively early on in the life of the Universe. sci-news/astronomy/science-kepler10c-mega-earth-01961.html
Posted on: Tue, 03 Jun 2014 20:15:18 +0000
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