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Our solar arrangement comprises three types of planets, namely rocky, earthbound worlds (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars), gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn), and ice giants (Uranus and Neptune).

Planets orbiting abroad stars appear in an alike added variety, including bedrock worlds and “hot Jupiters.”

Now, observations by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope accept added a new blazon of planet to the mix.

By allegory the ahead apparent apple GJ1214b, astronomer Zachory Berta (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) and colleagues accepted that it is a waterworld buried by a thick, mild atmosphere.

“GJ1214b is like no planet we apperceive of,” said Berta.

“A huge atom of its accumulation is fabricated up of water.”

GJ1214b was apparent in 2009 by the ground-based MEarth (pronounced “mirth”) Project, which is led by CfA’s David Charbonneau.

This super-Earth is about 2.7 times Earth’s bore and weighs about 7 times as much. It orbits a red-dwarf brilliant every 38 hours at a ambit of 1.3 actor miles, giving it an estimated temperature of 450 ° Fahrenheit.

In 2010, CfA scientist Jacob Bean and colleagues appear that they had abstinent the atmosphere of GJ1214b, award it acceptable that the atmosphere was composed mainly of water. However, their observations could additionally be explained by the attendance of a all-embracing brume in GJ1214b’s atmosphere.

Berta and his co-authors acclimated Hubble’s WFC3 apparatus to abstraction GJ1214b back it beyond in advanced of its host star. During such a transit, the star’s ablaze is filtered through the planet’s atmosphere, giving clues to the mix of gases.

“We’re application Hubble to admeasurement the bittersweet blush of dusk on this world,” explained Berta.

Hazes are added cellophane to bittersweet ablaze than to arresting light, so the Hubble observations advice acquaint the aberration amid a mild and a bleared atmosphere.

They begin the spectrum of GJ1214b to be characterless over a advanced ambit of wavelengths, or colours. The atmospheric archetypal best constant with the Hubble abstracts is a close atmosphere of baptize vapour.

“The Hubble abstracts absolutely tip the antithesis in favor of a mild atmosphere,” said Berta.

Since the planet’s accumulation and admeasurement are known, astronomers can account the density, which works out to about 2 grams per cubic centimetre. Baptize has a body of 1 g/cm3, while Earth’s boilerplate body is 5.5 g/cm3. This suggests that GJ1214b has abundant added baptize than Earth, and abundant beneath rock.

As a result, the centralized anatomy of GJ1214b would be actual altered than our world.

“The aerial temperatures and aerial pressures would anatomy conflicting abstracts like ‘hot ice’ or ‘superfluid water’ - substances that are absolutely conflicting to our accustomed experience,” Berta added.

Theorists apprehend that GJ1214b formed further out from its star, area baptize ice was plentiful, and migrated entering aboriginal in the system’s history. In the process, it would accept anesthetized through the star’s accouter zone. How continued it lingered there is unknown.

GJ1214b is amid in the administration of the afterlife Ophiuchus, and aloof 40 light-years from Earth. Therefore, it’s a prime applicant for abstraction by the next-generation James Webb Space Telescope.