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"Earth-like planet"? It orbits the star every 5 days; it's a quarter of the earth's mass. It's also a tenth the distance from its star that Mercury is from the
by denton-scratch 5y ago
"Earth-like planet"?
It orbits the star every 5 days; it's a quarter of the earth's mass. It's also a tenth the distance from its star that Mercury is from the Sun. It's earth-like only in that its temperature is consistent with there being liquid water.
- rob74 5y agoWell, Proxima Centauri isn't really "Sun-like" either, so what constitutes an "Earth-like" planet for a different type of star is debatable...
- mortehu 5y ago"Earth-like" just means terrestrial, as opposed to jovian. It means it has a rocky surface.
- rbanffy 5y agoVenus is also classified as Earth like, but it's rocky surface looks more like hell than the mythological descriptions of it. ;-)
- zardo 5y agoTerrestrial and rocky are both far better choices to communicate the concept.
- once_inc 5y agoThen they should have just called it a rocky planet. Earth-like is a massive misnomer/clickbait here.
- s1artibartfast 5y agoIt is the term used in planetary science. Not understanding something doesn't mean clickbait
- zardo 5y agoBeing the accepted term in the field doesn't it make it not click-bait. That just comes down to whether or not using the term in the headline baits people to click. The abstract refers to it as "sub-Earth", and a "Earth-mass".
- denton-scratch 5y agoThanks - I didn't know it was a technical term. So even if the thing's tidelocked, and has no atmosphere because stellar flare-ups, it still counts as earth-like. TIL.
- rbanffy 5y agoIIRC from other publications, they expect something between .26 and 1.1 Earth masses, so it may well be a reasonably big rock. Surface gravity, composition and atmosphere are also big factors in being Earth like - Titan has a lower gravity, but a much thicker atmosphere than Earth.
- mcv 5y agoCould you please stop ruining cool science journalism headlines with your facts?