New Planet Discovered

Video: Found: Firm Place to Stand Outside Solar System - The Associated Press

Astronomers have discovered a new planet they've named "Corot-7b" whose lava like surface gives it the appearance, of well, hell.

Found: Firm place to stand outside solar system

WASHINGTON — Astronomers have finally found a place outside our solar system where there's a firm place to stand — if only it weren't so broiling hot... "It's as close to something like the Earth that we've found so far. It's just a little too close to its sun."

So close that its surface temperature is more than 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit, too toasty to sustain life. It circles its star in just 20 hours, zipping around at 466,000 mph. By comparison, Mercury, the planet nearest our sun, completes its solar orbit in 88 days.

"It's hot, they're calling it the lava planet," Hatzes said...This is a major discovery in the field of trying to find life elsewhere in the universe, said outside expert Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution...

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