Small planet detected outside the Solar System

Given the high temperatures measured, the planet would be a very hot and humid place.
It may also belong to a class of planets that are thought to be made up of water and rock in almost equal amounts. Its temperature is so high that it is possibly covered in liquid lava. Given the high temperatures measured, the planet is still under investigation: it may be rocky like Earth and orbits a Sun-like star. It may also belong to a class of planets that are thought to be made up of water and rock in almost equal amounts.

Its temperature is so high that it is possibly covered in liquid lava. The amazing planet is still under investigation: it may be rocky like Earth and orbits a Sun-like star. COROT has found the smallest terrestrial planet ever detected outside the Solar System.This discovery is significant because recent measurements have indicated the existence of planets of small masses but their size remained undetermined until now. In addition, its location in space allows for longer periods of uninterrupted observation than from ground. Most of the methods used so far are indirect and sensitive to the mass of the methods used so far are indirect and sensitive to the mass of the planet, while COROT can directly measure the size of its surface, which is an advantage. This is because terrestrial planets are extremely difficult to detect.

Very few exoplanets found so far have a mass comparable to Earth's and the other terrestrial planets: Venus, Mars, and Mercury. COROT was designed precisely in the hope of discovering some of these objects," he added. "COROT-Exo-7b belongs to a class of objects whose existence had been predicted for some time. "Finding such a small planet was not a complete surprise", said Daniel Rouan, researcher at the Observatoire de Paris Lesia, who coordinates the project with Alain Léger, from Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale (Paris, France).We now have to understand this object further to put it into context, and continue our search for smaller, more Earth-like objects with COROT," he added. "For the first time, we have unambiguously detected a planet that is 'rocky' in the same sense as our own Earth. "This discovery is a very important step on the road to understanding the formation and evolution of our planet," said Malcolm Fridlund, ESA's COROT Project Scientist.

In theory, such planets would initially be covered partially in ice and they would later drift towards their star, with the ice melting to cover it in liquid. The internal structure of COROT-exo-7b particularly puzzles scientists; they are unsure whether it is an 'ocean planet', a kind of planet whose existence has never been proved so far.