Sat scope discovers Earthlike ’sauna world’
Astronomers using the CoRoT worldfinder satellite say they have discovered the smallest extra-solar planet yet known. The newly-checked-out world is less than twice the size of Earth, may have a solid surface, orbits a sun-like star and appears to have plenty of water. Sadly, local temperatures appear to be more than 1,000°C.
The planet, designated CoRoT-Exo-7b, orbits the star CoRot-Exo-7 more than 450 light years away in the constellation Monoceros. However, it does so in just 20 hours, being much closer to its parent star than Earth - hence the very high temperatures.
According to the European Space Agency, operator of the CoRoT satellite:
The CoRoT (COnvection ROtation and planetary Transits) satellite project is led by the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), the French space agency. Its two missions are the search for close-orbiting, smaller planets like CoRoT-Exo-7b and "astroseismology" measurements of stellar oscillations. ®
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