Thick atmosphere discovered around super-Earth in nearby solar system

June 28, 2024 6:52 AM

Thick atmosphere discovered around super-Earth in nearby solar system.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (12 comments total)

Now we just need to wrest it from the filthy hands of the automatons and the terminids.
posted by Scattercat at 6:54 AM on June 28 [5 favorites]

Where "nearby" is 41 years away if you could magically fly like a photon. Also, the floor is lava. Everywhere is lava. The lava is lava.
posted by pracowity at 7:18 AM on June 28 [8 favorites]

Yes, but(t)...thicc.
posted by Literaryhero at 7:43 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]

Immediate thought : 'I bet those money hoarders want to go there.'

Reads : the planet can reach a temperature of up to 2,300 degrees Celsius, and gravity is about 8 times that of earth.

Can we please send the money hoarders there anyway?
posted by many-things at 8:34 AM on June 28 [4 favorites]

Shouldn't that be "nearby stellar system"? I see "solar system" used often to describe things orbiting distant stars, but I thought "solar" only applied to the particular stellar object Earth orbits, which is named Sol. Have things changed since I was in school?
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:19 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]

in theory, except that stellar system already has a different meaning
posted by Clowder of bats at 11:34 AM on June 28 [1 favorite]

I stand corrected.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:00 PM on June 28

The atmosphere is also basically what we're doing to ours: carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 12:49 PM on June 28 [1 favorite]

My brain did a little flip at this paragraph, a pleasantly impossible image, to imagine the surface shape of a light year.

A light-year is nearly 9.7 trillion kilometres. Its surface is encrusted with magma oceans.

posted by xurizaemon at 1:07 PM on June 28 [2 favorites]

That's a lot of magma!
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:45 PM on June 28

artist's impression here.
posted by graywyvern at 5:00 AM on June 29

Those years, so light and crusty
posted by Phanx at 7:31 AM on June 29