| 查看: 739 | 回复: 4 | |||
| 当前只显示满足指定条件的回帖，点击这里查看本话题的所有回帖 | |||
[交流]
Two new Earth-sized exoplanets discovered
|
|||
|
Hunting for habitable worlds, NASA’s Kepler space telescope has unveiled two new planets, some 950 light-years away, that are the smallest yet detected, and the closest in size to Earth. In a paper published this week in Nature, scientists from MIT and elsewhere report that the planets — one just about Earth’s size, and the other a bit smaller — likely have rocky compositions, similar to Earth, and orbit a star much like the sun. But that’s where the similarities end. Compared with Earth’s leisurely 365-day orbit, the new planets practically whiz around their star in a matter of days or weeks. Their tight circuits, closer even than Mercury’s orbit around our sun, make the planets extremely hot — likely too hot to sustain life. While either planet is far from Earth’s twin, scientists say the discovery is a technological milestone. “For the Kepler space telescope, it’s extremely significant, because it proves we can reach down to Earth’s size,” says co-author Sara Seager, the Ellen Swallow Richards Professor of Planetary Science and Professor of Physics at MIT. “It’s a massive accomplishment just to find anything at all like this.” The new planets, which orbit the star Kepler 20, are part of a five-planet system, and have been named Kepler 20e and Kepler 20f. “This will hopefully open the floodgates to discovering more of these Earth-sized and sub-Earth-sized planets,” says co-author Leslie Rogers, a physics graduate student at MIT. “Then we’ll be able to determine some sort of context for how common are habitable Earth-sized planets.” |
回复此楼» 猜你喜欢
求调剂
已经有4人回复
-
0854求调剂
已经有27人回复
-
材料相关专业344求调剂双非工科学校或课题组
已经有27人回复
-
300求调剂
已经有12人回复
-
291求调剂
已经有10人回复
-
一志愿沪9，326求生物学调剂
已经有12人回复
-
生物学调剂
已经有10人回复
-
320求调剂
已经有5人回复
-
接受任何调剂
已经有7人回复
-
化学070300 求调剂
已经有29人回复
5楼2011-12-22 14:07:25
bai123
荣誉版主 (文坛精英)
大白鲨
-
专家经验: +55 - ESEPI: 1
- 应助: 576 (博士)
- 贵宾: 2.134
- 金币: 29154.5
- 散金: 20171
- 红花: 172
- 沙发: 3286
- 帖子: 37666
- 在线: 2450.6小时
- 虫号: 1157707
- 注册: 2010-11-28
- 专业: 有机高分子功能材料
no one more？ 
3楼2011-12-21 20:21:03
4楼2011-12-22 13:57:53
20