Many small exoplanets found to be covered in gas: New measurements of mass expand knowledge of exoplanets' compositions
Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - 14:30
in Astronomy & Space
NASA's Kepler space telescope discovered thousands of "planetary candidates," but what are the planets made of? To know this, each planet's mass first must be determined. An astronomer reports having measured the masses of approximately 60 exoplanets larger than Earth and smaller than Neptune. The measurements greatly expand scientists' knowledge of sub-Neptune exoplanets because once the mass and size of a planet are known, the density can be determined and the composition of the planet inferred.