The space telescopeCoRoTESA has just discovered theexoplanetsmallest detected to date. With a diameter approximately twice that of our planet, this “Supertierra“it is so close to its main star that its temperature reachesbetween 1,000 and 1,500 ºC, so its surface is most likely rocky, or covered with lava or water vapor. It has been baptized asCoRoT-Exo-7b.
Astronomers were able to detect the planet using the method of thetransit, that is, detecting the slight darkening of the star’s brightness when the planet passes regularly in front of it, every 20 Earth hours.
Most of the more than 330 planets discovered so far are giant planets made up mostly of gas, like Jupiter and Neptune. But in the case of CoRoT-Exo-7b it is not so clear, since it could be a rocky object, like the Earth. “Identifying the nature of this planet will require much future research; we may need to consider this discovery as thebeginning of exoterial astronomy“, declared Hans Deeg, a researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and a member of the discovery team.
The internal structure of CoRoT-Exo-7b is a particular puzzle for scientists. “This is a question that has aroused the curiosity of the astronomical community for several years: is there also“ocean planets”? These objects would be originally composed oficethat, as it moves closer and closer to its star, it would melt to form a liquid coating “, explains Alain Léger, a researcher at the Paris Observatory.
