Astronomers discover an Earth like planet close to a nearby planet

Astronomers discover an Earth like planet close to a nearby planet

Astronomers have discovered the most Earth-like of all 155 so-called extrasolar planets found orbiting stars besides our sun. They predict that it would be orbiting a star in our cosmic neighborhood and is probably a lot like earth but bigger. Most other planets discovered until now have been big and gassy like Jupiter.

Geoffrey Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley said in a statement: “It took 150 observations of this star to glean the existence of this Earth-like planet. This will definitely be one of our favorite stars from now on.” Jack Lissauer of NASA’s Ames Research Center said: “It’s like Earth’s bigger cousin.” He is part of the group, which discovered this planet.

This new discovery happens to be the smallest extrasolar planet ever detected, with about 7.5 times the Earth’s mass. Normally the planets found in the outer space are much more larger than the size of the earth. There is little possibility of life though as the planet’s surface is quite hot ranging from 400 to 700 degrees F.

It is also orbiting its star very closely at just 2 million miles away from Gliese.