4 ms·

"Earth-like" just means terrestrial, as opposed to jovian. It means it has a rocky surface.

• rbanffy 5y ago
  Venus is also classified as Earth like, but it's rocky surface looks more like hell than the mythological descriptions of it. ;-)
  • Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    Since we're being a bit pedantic in this thread, the biblical descriptions of hell are limited to darkness and gnashing of teeth.
    • rbanffy 5y ago
      I think that the fire and sulphur part is mostly from Muslim tradition. They kind of got close to what Venus is.
• zardo 5y ago
  Terrestrial and rocky are both far better choices to communicate the concept.
• once_inc 5y ago
  Then they should have just called it a rocky planet. Earth-like is a massive misnomer/clickbait here.
  • s1artibartfast 5y ago
    It is the term used in planetary science. Not understanding something doesn't mean clickbait
    • zardo 5y ago
      Being 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 ago
  Thanks - 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.