Discovered the first Earth-like planet in 400 light years

Today we are going to disconnect a bit from the technological advances to which we are always used to dealing with another very special news. Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have shown in recent days that the planet discovered last August has approximately the same mass and size as Earth. For the investigation, data obtained thanks to two telescopes were used, studying the tremors shown by the mother-star (kepler 78) of this exoplanet, which has been named Kepler 78b.

This planet has a size 1.2 times larger than Earth, and a mass 1.7 times higher, which gives it a density of 5.3 grams per cubic centimeter, very similar to the blue planet, with 5.5 grams /cubic centimeter. However, its composition of iron and rock must be almost the same. Some scientists affirm that it is the most similar extra-solar planet to ours that has been discovered to date - more than 1000 exoplanets in two decades - being 400 light years from here.

Kepler 78b makes a turn around its star in 8.5 hours (we already know that it takes Earth to make its orbit 365 days), which means that it is very close to its sun, giving it a very high temperature on its surface: "It is similar to Earth in that it is the same size and mass, but of course it is very different from Earth, as it is at least 2, 000 degrees more, " says Josh Winn, associate professor of physics at the MIT and member of the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. This temperature is clearly incompatible with the existence of life.

Researchers have classified it as a "condemned planet" since due to its characteristics it will end up being increasingly strongly attracted by the gravity of its star until its collision and subsequent disappearance, something that will happen in approximately 3 million years.

What is really important about this case is that it is one more step towards the future of studying almost twin planets to Earth even in more temperate environments.

Obtaining very similar data in the Kepler 78b study by independent Swiss, Italian and English teams reinforces this result. We can find his articles published in the prestigious science journal Nature.