SUPER EARTH GJ 1214b

What is 'Super Earth"?? It is a newly discovered planet similar to Earth but much bigger. It is located in another solar system but being too close to its Sun, the surface temperature (estimated at 188 C degree though some microbes on Earth can survive at 140 C degree) is too hot to sustain life. Its radius is 2.7 times larger than Earth's and is 42 light years away our Solar system. It is 6.5 times more massive but 3/4 of it is made up of liquid water. It has no continents. Its atmosphere is filled with hydrogen and helium. Its core is made of iron and nickel. The dense atmospheric pressure allows the water to remain liquid at such high temperature. It is also estimated that a significant amount of its atmosphere has been lost due to hydrodynamic escape.  It takes only 38 hours for this planet to orbit its sun.

This planet was discovered by MEarth Project using 8 amateur-size telescopes. The mass estimation of the planet was done using radial velocity data from a larger telescope.

The discovery of this planet was published in December 17 2009 issue of Nature by David Charbonneau and his colleagues of Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

This is an artist impression of the planet , not an actual photo.