By Miriam Kramer, Space.com
BOSTON — Scientists have just discovered the "Godzilla of Earths" — a new type of huge and rocky alien world about 560 light-years from Earth.
Dubbed a "mega-Earth," the exoplanet Kepler-10c weighs 17 times as much as Earth and it circles a sunlike star in the constellation Draco. The mega-Earth is rocky and also bigger than "super-Earths," which are a class of planets that are slightly bigger than Earth.
The mega-Earth orbits its parent star once every 45 days. Kepler-10c is probably too close to its star to be hospitable to life, and it isn't the only orbiting the yellow star. Kepler-10 also plays host to a "lava world" called Kepler-10b that is three times the mass of Earth and speeds around its star in a 20-hour orbit.
BOSTON — Scientists have just discovered the "Godzilla of Earths" — a new type of huge and rocky alien world about 560 light-years from Earth.
Dubbed a "mega-Earth," the exoplanet Kepler-10c weighs 17 times as much as Earth and it circles a sunlike star in the constellation Draco. The mega-Earth is rocky and also bigger than "super-Earths," which are a class of planets that are slightly bigger than Earth.
The mega-Earth orbits its parent star once every 45 days. Kepler-10c is probably too close to its star to be hospitable to life, and it isn't the only orbiting the yellow star. Kepler-10 also plays host to a "lava world" called Kepler-10b that is three times the mass of Earth and speeds around its star in a 20-hour orbit.
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