The planet, called Corot-7b, was detected by French astronomers in 2009.
Credit: ESO
SYDNEY: The first rocky planet found outside of our Solar System is likely to be a volcanic wasteland inhospitable to life, scientists have found.
The planet, called Corot-7b, was detected by French astronomers in 2009. It has a similar density to Earth and has a diameter around 70% larger.
Last week astronomers led by Rory Barnes at the University of Washington in Seattle, presented new data on Corot-7b's orbit to a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington DC.
Tidally driven volcanism
From their calculations, the researchers found that the planet deviates slightly from a perfectly circular orbit. Because the planet has no oceans to absorb the tidal force of the deviation, and because it orbits very close to its host star, it is likely to have intense volcanism, said Barnes.
"If conditions are what we speculate, then Corot-7b could have multiple volcanoes going off continuously and magma flowing all over the surface," he said.
"Although this planet is not habitable because it is too close to its star, as we find planets on larger, potentially habitable orbits we should bear in mind that tidally-driven volcanism may also prevent habitability on some worlds."
Other data shows that Corot-7b was likely to have once been a gas giant, but that its atmosphere boiled away as it was drawn closer to its star.
"Not good places to look for life"
With current technology we are most likely to spot exoplanets that are close to their host stars, Barnes said. This means that they are more likely to resemble Io - one of Jupiter's eight moons and the most volcanic object in the Solar System - than Earth.
According to Brad Carter, an astrophysicist from the University of Southern Queensland, in Australia, the findings help our understanding of volcanism outside the Solar System. The data reveals that the process is driven by similar mechanisms, he said.
"These results underscore how diverse planets can be, and reminds us that the exoplanets so far found don't tend to be good places to look for life," said Carter. "Nevertheless, given that volcanic gasses may have been important in the development of life on Earth, it is worth considering the role of past or present volcanism on any benign terrestrial exoplanets yet to be discovered."
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Gemma, interesting article.
Gemma, interesting article. How are we able to identify and discover new bodies of mass outside the solar system that were previously hidden? Is it new technology or a matter of looking in the right direction?
Thanks,
Kevin
www.kevinjamesporter.com
Interesting article
Cosmos has published a story of how they find distant planets, and it also explains why they can only fidn the big ones near their stars, although the computer tech is getting better.
I cannot remember the exact edition of the mag that had the story, but it goes somewhat like this. They are looking for a wobble from the parent star. The wobble suggests that there is a gravitational pull that is being excerted onto the star from something big. Then they can turn up the detectors and look for the planet in the same direction of the wobble.
There is also another way they can do this although not as profitable. Occasionally the planets drift infront of the star, kid of like an ET eclippse. But as you may already know these are rare events on earth, so must by account be so much more rare out there.
Hope this helps out a little.