Over 400 planets outside our solar system have been found. Finding one suitable for life is another story
CoRoT-7b was discovered in early 2009 by the French-led COROT mission.
It is the first Earth-like exoplanet astronomers have identified.
But CoRoT-7b is a forbidding place, with surface temperatures up to 4,000 degrees F (2,200 C) on the side lit by its star and down to minus 350 F (minus 210 C) on its dark side.
According to astronomer Rory Barnes at the University of Washington in Seattle, the planet sounds like it could be Vulcan's workshop.
"If conditions are what we speculate, then CoRoT-7b could have multiple volcanoes going off continuously and magma flowing all over the surface," said Barnes.
"Any planet where the surface is being remade at such a rate is a place nearly impossible for life to get a foothold."
Barnes says that the next step to finding a planet that could harbor life is detecting rocky planets that are no too close to their stars.
NASA's Kepler space telescope, which was specifically designed to find Earth-size planets in the habitable zone of stars like our Sun, has just discovered its first five new exoplanets. All of them have surface temperatures hotter than molten lava.
But the international search for "Earth 2" has really just begun, and though the chances of finding Earth seem small, it is entirely possible.
According to Ohio State University astronomer Scott Gaudi, solar systems like ours amount to about 15 percent of all the solar systems in the entire universe.
"Now we know our place in the universe," said Gaudi at an American Astronomical Society meeting this week in Washington, D.C.
"Solar systems like our own are not rare, but we're not in the majority, either."
The hunt goes on.
GET INVOLVED
- Join the Great World Wide Star Count
- Visit NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day Web site
- See what's in the sky tonight
- Sign a petition to add the option for US taxpayers to contribute to NASA on the IRS 1040 tax form
- Download Google Earth 5.0, which has an interactive map of the entire surface of Mars
- Planet Hunters (October 6, 2009)
- Kepler and the Gate to the Black Forest (February 15, 2009)
- Basic Chemistry of Life Found on Exoplanet (December 14, 2008)
- Reclaiming the Night Sky (October 2, 2009)
- Empire of the Sun (August 7, 2009)
- Sailing Through Space on Sunshine (November 13, 2009)
- The Lost Siblings of the Sun (November 6, 2009)
- Where Stars Are Born (July 16, 2009)
- Star Light, Star Bright (September 25, 2009)
- A Message from the Universe's More Youthful Days (October 30, 2009)
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