What are Super-Earths?
16 Super Earths have been found, so far.
What is a Super-Earth?
Many people would assume that the term Super-Earth would refer to planets that are habitable, however they would be wrong. At this point in time scientist cannot be sure that any of these planets can be habitable. So what does the term super-Earth refer to?
Well a Super-Earth is a planet that has a mass as little as 1x the Earths density to 10x that amount.You might be wondering what is the mass of the Earth? The Earths mass is approximately 6.6 sextillion short tons (6,600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000x2000lbs). So if a super Earth is 10x more massive than the Earth just image that big number multiplied by 10 and consider the amount of gravitational pull that planet must have. I don't know many women who would want to live on such a planet where they would weigh 10x more than they do here on Earth. This term has nothing to do with what the conditions of the Super-Earths surface would be like, but if the planet is 10x more than our home planets then I don't think there could be much movement on it's surface by any life forms like us. Maybe, if the lifeforms were miniscule they could move but the planet would have to be rocky and not a gas planet.
Where have please planets been found?
They have been found in the milkyway galaxy. These planets are in what scientist call extrasolar (systems) and they refer to the planets as exoplanets, simply put planets outside of our solar system. Scientist at NASA are using the Kepler space telescope to find these planets.
How many planets have been found?
About 1265 planets have been found and 600 of them are confirmed planets, 16 planets have been deemed Super-Earths. It will take further investigation to find out if any other these planets have liquid water on them and if they are rocky. But I find that they have found planets in the habitable zones of the stars that they orbit amazing.
Science has made leaps and bounds. It will continue to astound astronomer lovers for years to come with further investigations. Wouldn't it be amazing to find other life forms? Or that there is another habitable planet where the stars of Earth could vacation without being stalked by the paparazzi? (The last part was a joke)
