An exoplanet that has a mass similar to Earth has been observed by astronomers using NASA’s Kepler space telescope.
An exoplanet that has a mass similar to Earth has been observed by astronomers using NASA’s Kepler space telescope.
Named KOI-314c, the exoplanet is about 60 percent larger than Earth, and has a higher temperature because it is significantly closer to its host star, with a year lasting only 23 days.
The exoplanet orbits a red dwarf star 200 light years away from Earth, and has a sibling planet which orbits the star every 13 days.
Researchers are studying the gravitational effects that the two planets have on each other while orbiting the red dwarf.
David Kipping, lead author of the study from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said: “This planet might have the same mass as Earth, but it is certainly not Earthlike. It proves that there is no clear dividing line between rocky worlds like Earth and fluffier planets like water worlds or gas giants.”
Another earthlike exoplanet known as Kepler-78b was also discovered using the Kepler observatory, and was measured by two different teams including researchers from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
The exoplanet is similar in size to Earth, with a mass over one and a half times larger. However, the distance to its host star makes it much hotter and one year on Kepler-78b lasts only eight and a half hours.
