Water-Ice Super-Earths
Friday, August 27, 2010 - 12:35
in Astronomy & Space
A "super-Earth" is a planet around another star (an "exoplanet") whose mass is less than about ten times that of the Earth. Of the 480 or so extrasolar planets now known, most have masses larger than the mass of Jupiter, which is 318 times more massive than the Earth. About two dozen, though, appear to have masses that put them into the super-Earth category. About 70 exoplanets have orbits that happen to be aligned such that the planet passes directly between the star and the Earth (a transit).