ScienceDaily: Extrasolar Planets News |
| Lava world baffles astronomers: Planet Kepler-78b 'shouldn't exist' Posted: 30 Oct 2013 11:29 AM PDT Kepler-78b is a planet that shouldn't exist. This scorching lava world circles its star every eight and a half hours at a distance of less than one million miles - one of the tightest known orbits. According to current theories of planet formation, it couldn't have formed so close to its star, nor could it have moved there. |
| Posted: 30 Oct 2013 11:28 AM PDT In August, researchers identified an exoplanet with an extremely brief orbital period: The team found that Kepler 78b, a small, intensely hot planet 400 light-years from Earth, circles its star in just 8.5 hours — lightning-quick, compared with our own planet's leisurely 365-day orbit. From starlight data gathered by the Kepler Space Telescope, the scientists also determined that the exoplanet is about 1.2 times Earth's size — making Kepler 78b one of the smallest exoplanets ever measured. |
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